Bangladeshi court sentences 10 militants to death

Dhaka: A court in Dhaka on Thursday handed down the death penalty to 10 operatives of the banned Islamist outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) for a 2005 suicide bomb attack that killed eight people in suburban Gazipur.

“The convicts will be hanged till they are dead,” said judge Mohammad Motahar Hussain of Dhaka’s Speedy Trial Tribunal in a crowded courtroom at old Dhaka. The militants were produced before the court under a heavy security cover.

In November 29, 2005, a JMB activist blew himself up at the Gazipur Bar Association complex. He gained entry in the guise of a lawyer. The accused aided him in exploding the device in the office room of a lawyer. Four of the victims of the attacks were lawyers. Scores of people were injured.

The prosecution earlier told the court that the eight convicts assisted the suicide bomber in building the bomb and planning the attack.

At least 28 people were eventually killed in JMB attacks between August and December 2005. In subsequent years, JMB carried out a series of bomb attacks across the country killing scores, including two judges.

JMB pamphlets at the time said the outfit did not recognise the country’s “Satan-inspired” government and that the attacks were aimed at introducing Sharia.

Under Bangladeshi law, death sentences can be executed only after the High Court reviews the verdict under an automatic death reference hearing or through an appeal by the convicts.

JMB carried out the attack months after it announced its emergence as a clandestine outfit with the near simultaneous blasts in 62 of 64 districts on August 17, 2005. Only two people were killed in those explosions as powerful explosives were not used in the 500 improvised bombs exploded at more than 300 spots.

The JMB is also reported to operate in three Indian districts of Murshidabad, Maldah and Nadia in West Bengal through some 100 ‘ehsar’ or full-time operatives.

Six JMB kingpins, including its founder chief, the Afghan-trained Shaikh Abdur Rahman and second-in-command Bangla Bhai, were executed in 2007.

More than 350 JMB operatives have been awarded different punishments including the death penalty, though most of these sentences await review in higher courts.

Bangladesh witnessed the growth of several militant outfits, including the JMB and Harkatul Jihad al Islami (HuJI) in early 2010 when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led government was in power.

The situation prompted the BNP-led government to order a crackdown while subsequent regimes intensified it.