[Bangla Daily Star] Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) launched a simultaneous drive in the capital and elsewhere in the country last night to track down a group of fugitive militant convicts and arrested six of them following latest intelligence information about their preparations for subversive activities. The arrestees belong to the banned Islamist outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (Huji), and they were convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for life along with 35 other Huji men in 1998. All the 41 were behind the bar since their arrest on February 19 in 1996 from a Huji den in deep forest at Ukhia in Cox's Bazar with firearms and grenades. But they were freed on bail from the High Court soon after the BNP-Jamaat-led alliance assumed power in 2001. Till the filing of this report at mid night, Rab arrested two in the capital, one in Feni and three in Chittagong and Cox's Bazar.
Law enforcers' records showed the convicts untraced for eight years, and there were no effective efforts to track them down, sources concerned said.
Rab sources said some of the 41 fugitive convicts came under spotlight in the wake of recent intelligence information about their attempt to smuggle in arms into the country through Naikhangchhari border for subversive activities.
The two arrested at Nababer Bagh in the city are Abul Khaer, 40, of Manikganj and Moulana Mohammad Musa, 38, of Chandpur.
The four other arrestees are Abdul Aziz, 45, of Feni, Razaul Karim, 40, and Anwar Uddin Zaved of Chakaria in Cox's Bazar and Abdullah Al Hossain of Banshkhali in Chittagong. They were held from their houses, Rab said. "We gathered information that the HuJi members attempted to smuggle in a consignment of firearms through Zarullachhari at Naikhangchhari in Bandarban, and were recruiting people to strengthen the banned HuJi," said a top Rab official, asking not to be named.
He mentioned that the 41 Huji men, freed on bail, never appeared before court later apprehending they might be arrested again on court order. Rab also came to know through its intelligence that many of the 41 left the country after their release on bail.
Back in 1996, in a joint drive by police, intelligence and army officials, the 41 Huji men were arrested from their training camp inside a cave in the deep Thanaikhali forest in Palangkhali union of Ukhia, an upazila bordering Myanmar.
Thirty-five types of weapons and other items including eight types of firearms, grenades, bullets, swords, binocular, military uniforms, camera and flags inscribed with 'jihad' were seized from their possession.
A case was filed against the arrestees with Ukhia Police Station, mentioning that the detainees were members of huji and stood for Taliban-style armed struggle. They all were locally known as Mujahid (worriors).
The government banned HuJi on October 17 in 2005, over a decade after it had started to spread its tentacles in the country.