Bangladesh News

Investigation of the Ramna Batamul bomb blast case has taken a new turn after a six-year lull as Mufti Abdul Hannan, operation commander of the banned Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, admitted to being involved in the attack.
The investigators on February 28 received instructions from the home ministry to reinvestigate the case after Hannan gave the statement before a magistrate, sources in the Criminal Investigation Department said.
Mufti Hannan, operation commander of the Bangladesh chapter of the outfit, was shown arrested in the case and remanded in custody on September 10, 2006 for eight days.
On November 19, 2006, metropolitan magistrate Shafique Anwar recorded his statement for about six hours after he was interrogated being remanded in custody for 170 days after his arrest on October 1, 2005.
Hannan confessed seven Harkatul operatives, including two Dhaka College students Hasan and Omar Faruq, carried out the attack on the Pahela Baishakh celebrations at Ramna Batamul. Other attackers were Abu Taher, Sheikh Farid, Abu Bakar, Yeahia and Abdul Hye.
Abu Hena Md Yusuf, the eighth investigation officer of the case, told New Age, ‘We have made significant progress in the investigation, but I cannot give any details without permission of the high officials.’
He said they had received an order from the home ministry to reinvestigate the incident as per information recently gathered.
Besides, the Criminal Investigation Department on September 14, 2006 produced Mahmud Azhar alias Mamun, of Gangni in Meherpur, in the court of the chief metropolitan magistrate in Dhaka and filed a petition for showing him arrested in the case.
In the forwarding report placed in the court, Abu Hena said Mamun might be involved in the blasts. ‘He needs to be intensively interrogated to unearth the clues and whereabouts of the culprits responsible for the blasts,’ Abu Hena said.
Mamun was earlier arrested in connection with a case filed with the Kotalipara police for an attempt on the life of Sheikh Hasina with planting a bomb.
A powerful bomb exploded at Chhayanaut’s Pahela Baishakh celebrations on April 14, 2001, in which 10 were killed and 50 injured.
The law enforcers earlier arrested 12 people in connection with the blast, but all of them were remanded on bail by the High Court.
Of them, Maulana Akbar Hussain, a suspected Harkat-ul-Jihad operative, gave a statement before a metropolitan magistrate on June 14, 2001 and disclosed the names of Hannan and his other associates.
But on June 28, 2001, Akbar retracted his statement saying he was tortured severely during the remand and was forced to give the statement.
Ramna Batamul bomb blast was the second attack on such a cultural programme. Ten people were earlier killed and more than 100 injured in an explosion at a cultural function of Udichi in Jessore on March 6, 1999.