Dhaka clamps down on militants after blast

Dhaka: Security agencies launched an intensified anti-militant clampdown overnight and arrested a Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) kingpin and six others after Friday's grenade explosion at a police office in suburban Gazipur.

Elite anti-crime unit, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), said their troops arrested JMB's chief coordinator Motasim alias Basir alias Nasser along with three accomplices late on Friday while police said they caught four more suspected JMB operatives including a woman in an early morning raid yesterday from the East Kolomeshwar area of the same district.

The intensified security campaign came after some 15 people were injured as a grenade, that had been seized earlier, was exploded by a detained suspected JMB activist at a press conference at a police office in Gazipur on Friday. However, police and RAB officials said the arrests of suspected militants were the outcome of long-held intelligence operations conducted under their routine vigil against terrorist outfits.

"These (arrests) are the result of our long and routine intelligence vigil. But the arrest of Motasim is a major success as he is now charged with the task of JMB's 'dawat' (invitation campaign) programme," RAB spokesman, commander Abul Kalam Azad said.

Azad said Motasim was also in charge of the outfit's finances while he was leading the legal efforts to free JMB men behind bars.

One of the arrested pounced on a seized hand grenade and detonated it in the Gazipur police chief's room during the press conference.

Witnesses said Mamunur Rashaid, a handcuffed JMB operator, exploded the grenade in an apparent attempt to commit suicide.