Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) personnel arrested seven members of a newly discovered "militant" organisation named Hijbe Abu Omar (HAO) after raiding different places in and outside the capital since March 29. Rab claimed that founding member of the banned militant organisation Harkatul Jihad Al Islami Maulana Abdur Rouf is the chief of this organisation. The elite force also seized three firearms and ammunition from the caretaker of a madrasa in Bhaluka, Mymensingh on April 2 and explosives and grenade making materials from the imam of a mosque in Barisal yesterday.
While tracking a kidnapping incident recently, Rab-2 arrested HAO member Mahadi Hasan alias Kwafi at the city's Badda area on March 29. Kwafi confessed about his involvement with the underground organisation, Rab officials claimed. He also told Rab personnel that they used to stage fake kidnaps of the members of the organisation to realise money from their parents in order to fund the organisation. Following Kafi's statement, the law enforcers arrested Abu Yusuf alias Sagar alias Shourav and Nazmul Haque from different places in the capital.
Acting on information extracted from the three detainees, Rab, with the aid of local police, recovered two revolvers, a one-shooter gun and 10 bullets from Mohammad Bayezid, caretaker of Nurul Ulum Jamia Madrasa, in Bhaluka. Their information also led to the seizure of explosives and other materials, enough to manufacture four homemade grenades, from Akramuzzaman, imam of Sardabari mosque at Shaestabad, in Barisal city yesterday.
On further interrogation, one of the three arrestees Yusuf, disclosed the names of 20 leaders and activists of HAO including its chief Maulana Abdur Rouf and three Majlish-e-Shura (highest policy making body) members. Following Yusuf's information, Rab later arrested four people--two Majlish-e-Shura members Harun and Mustafa and two activists Mahbub and Mamun. Yusuf is accused in twelve cases filed in connection with the August 17, 2005 countrywide orchestrated bomb attacks while Kwafi is accused in an arms case filed with Barisal Police Station on February 20.