[Bangla Daily Star] Detective Branch of police has arrested another Indian national linked to Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in the capital. The arrestee, Moulana Mohammad Mansur Ali, was also an organiser of Asif Reza Commando Force, the terrorist outfit responsible for the attack on American Centre in Kolkata on January 22, 2002.
DB police claim they made the arrest swooping on a madrasa in Dakkhin Khan area on Monday night.
They carried out the raid following up information gleaned from Mufti Obaidullah, an Indian and LeT operative captured in Dhaka recently.
Mansur was paraded before the media at the DB headquarters yesterday.
DB Deputy Commissioner Monirul Islam said the militant leader entered Bangladesh illegally from India in 1995. Under the alias Habibullah, he worked as teacher in different Islamic seminaries.
Before joining Madrasatur Rahman at Saodagarbari of Dakkhin Khan, Mansur taught at Nurani Madrasa at Moralimore, Bagharpara Madrasa in Jessore, Porasunda Maktab in Habiganj and Tikarpur Madrasa at Nababganj in Dhaka.
Obaidullah too had been holed up in the country as a madrasa teacher.
An Afghan war veteran, Mansur was above him in the LeT hierarchy.
He told reporters he was a student when he joined the Afghan war against the then Soviet troops.
He said he had close relations with local Huji top brass including Mufti Hannan, Abdur Rouf, Abu Taher and Sheikh Abdus Salam.
He however denied having links to any attacks staged by the Harkatul Jihad al Islami operatives in Bangladesh, another banned Islamist organisation.
Trained in operation of AK-47 assault rifle, machinegun, rocket launcher and anti-aircraft weapons, Mansur returned to India in 1993.
He moved back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan after the war ended in 1989.
Back in India, he joined fellow Afghan war returnees in efforts to recruit youths to fight the Indian army in Jammu and Kashmir, read a DB press release.
He came under Indian intelligence watch in 1994.
After arrest, Mansur kept claiming that he is from Shriramkathi village under Jhikargachha upazila in Jessore.
DB officials took him there for crosscheck and found his claim to be false.
DC Monirul said Mansur participated in at least 25 battles in Afghanistan and Kashmir.
Daud Merchant, detained Indian underworld operative, gave police leads about the LeT leaders hiding in Bangladesh.
Merchant, a close aide to mafia don Daud Ibrahim, is one of those accused of killing music baron Gulshan Kumar in Mumbai in 1997.
He and his associate Zahid Sheikh were arrested one and a half month ago.