Five operatives of the Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed, including its Pakistani coordinator in Bangladesh who was also a recruiter for operations in India, was nabbed in Dhaka on Sunday, officials said.
Of the five JeM activists, one is a Pakistani national while the remaining four are Bangladeshi citizens, said Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, assistant director of the elite Rapid Action Batalion.
Rezwan Ahmed, 26, of Karachi, two brothers Imazuddin alias Munna and Sadek Hossain alias Khoka, Abu Naser Munshi and Nannu Mia alias Belal Mandol were arrested during the special anti-militancy drive near the Dhaka College.
RAB officials said Rezwan had confessed that he was JeM's regional coordinator and also a recruiting agent for conducting operations in India.
Rezwan, who was fluent speaker in Hindi, Urdu, Bangla and English, was well trained to use handguns, sniper rifles, automatic weapons, light machine guns, heavy machineguns, RPGs and executing operations using explosives, officials said.
They said he was also skilled in planning suicide attacks at rail stations and trains. The security forces seized passports, sharp weapons, computer CPUs, different identity cards and foreign currencies from them, Col Zia Ahsan of the RAB said.
Nannu Mia, one of the other detained militants, was reportedly arrested in India in 1999 for his role in the Indian airlines hijacking from Kathmandu.
RAB said they had also learnt that Nannu was imprisoned in Guwahati for about 10 years, with more than four militancy-related cases pending against him in different Indian courts.
Col Ahsan said the suspects would be taken into custody for interrogation. JeM, founded by Maulana Masood Azhar, was responsible for the December 13, 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi.
The banned terror group was launched on Jan 31, 2000, by Azhar in Karachi after he was released as part of a deal to release Indian hostages in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
