The Rapid Action Battalion arrested on Thursday a condemned convict in the case for bomb attack on Pahela Baishakh celebrations at Ramna Batamul in 2001.
The battalion’s media wing assistant director Emran Khan said that they arrested Mufti Shafiqul Islam at Bhairab in Kishorganj on Thursday.
At least 10 people were killed and many injured in the attack on a Chhayanaut event during the Pahela Baishakh celebrations at Ramna Batamul on April 14, 2001.
A trial court in Dhaka on June 23, 2014 sentenced eight operatives of banned Islamist organisation Harkat-ul-Jihad—its chief Mufti Abdul Hannan, Mufti Shafiqul, Arif Hasan Sumon, Akbar Hossain, Tajuddin, Jahangir Alam Badal, Abu Bakar and Mufti Abdul Hai—for the attack.
The court also sentenced six others of the extremist outfit—Shahadat Ullah Jewel, Maulana Abu Taher, Abdur Rauf, Sabbir Hossain, Yahiya and Shawkat Osman alias Sheikh Farid—to imprisonment for life term.
On April 13, 2017, Mufti Hannan was executed for killing three people and injuring then British high commissioner in Bangladesh and a dozen others in Sylhet on May 21, 2004.
Five of the convicts—Arif, Abkar, Shahadat, Abu Taher and Abdur Rauf—are in prison while the rest seven are still in hiding.
The death sentences are pending with the High Court.
Shafiqul was also sentenced to life in prison in August 21 grenade attack case.
