Ramna Batamul blast convict Huji-B founder Abdul Hye arrested

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has arrested Amir Abdul Hye, the founder of Harkat-ul-Jihad Bangladesh – a banned militant outfit. 

He is a death row convict in the bombing case of Kotalipara in Gopalganj and the Ramna Batamul bombing.

ANM Imran Khan, assistant director of RAB's law and media wing, said Mufti Abdul Hye was arrested from Fatullah in Narayanganj. 

He has been sentenced to life imprisonment in several cases apart from the bombing of Kotalipara and Ramna Batamul, said the RAB official.

A Dhaka court on 23 June 2014, sentenced eight militants to death for the 2001 Ramna Batamul bomb attack. On the morning of Pahela Baishakh, 14 April 2001, at least 10 people were killed and 50 injured in a bomb blast during a cultural programme at the capital's Ramna Batamul.

On 20 August 2017, the Speedy Trial Tribunal-2 in Dhaka sentenced 10 people to death in another case filed over the murder attempt on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at Kotalipara in Gopalganj in 2000.

On 20 July 2000, police recovered a 76-kilogram bomb from near a shop adjacent to Sheikh Lutfur Rahman Govt High School, where Sheikh Hasina was supposed to address a rally on July 22 same year.

On 21 July 2000, another bomb weighing 40-kg was recovered from Gopalganj Sadar.

Ten people had been sentenced to death in this incident, all of whom had connections to Harkat-ul-Jihad.