Police still 'clueless' about snatched militants 

Police are yet to trace the whereabouts of the two convicted militants who were snatched from police custody at Dhaka's Chief Judicial Magistrates Court premises one month ago.

Following the incident, police carried out a countrywide special drive from 1–15 December and arrested nearly 24,000 people, but the escaped militants were not among them.

SM Nazmul Haque, deputy commissioner of the investigation department of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) Unit of police and the supervising officer of the militant snatching case, told The Business Standard on Monday that their efforts are on, but they have yet to locate the extremists.

On the afternoon of 20 November, several youths attacked two policemen in the court area, sprayed chemicals in a police constable's eyes, and snatched away extremists Mainul Islam Shamim and Abu Siddique Sohel.

Mainul and Sohel, from Sunamganj and Lalmonirhat respectively, also members of banned extremist outfit Ansar al Islam, are among eight extremists sentenced to death for killing publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan. Sohel was also handed a death sentence for killing Bangladeshi-American writer and blogger Avijit Roy.

Alert has been in place in the bordering areas since the incident, and the police authorities announced a Tk10 lakh reward for information on each of the escapees.

CTTC investigators claimed that sacked army major Syed Mohammad Ziaul Haque, alias Major Zia, plotted the ambush and snatching.

Deputy Commissioner Nazmul said that 15 people have been arrested so far in the snatching case. Three are accused of being patrons, while the rest were earlier arrested with Mainul and Sohel in an extremism related case filed with Mohammadpur Police Station.

"Twelve accused are now on remand in the CTTC's custody. Our investigation is on. There are no major developments to share in the tracing of two escaped extremists," he added.

According to sources at the Police Headquarters, 15,968 people had arrest warrants against them, while 8,000 were held in 5,132 cases filed during the drive conducted after an instruction was issued by the Police Headquarters on 29 November.

Seeking anonymity, an official at the Police Headquarters said 33,429 operations were carried out during the 15-day drive, and the law enforcers recovered 24 firearms, including three pistols.

They also seized 2,86,592 yaba pills, 8.6 kilograms of heroin, 5,415 bottles of Phensedyl, and 7,580 kilograms of cannabis, he added.

Blockade raids were carried out across the capital as part of the special operation to apprehend extremists, while the opposition BNP claimed police launched the nationwide operation to arrest their leaders under the guise of a manhunt.

The BNP leaders also claimed that during the manhunt, thousands of their party leaders and workers were arrested ahead of their 'much talked' Dhaka divisional rally on 10 December.

Manzur Rahman, assistant inspector general for media at the police headquarters, said that 72 extremists and terrorists were arrested in the drive, but the escaped extremists were not among them.

At a recent press briefing, Khandaker Al-Moin, director for media of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), said its intelligence also worked but yet to trace the escaped extremists.

He said that their operations have mainly focused on the new extremist outfit Jamatul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya, and so far they have arrested 35 members of the militant outfit.