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Suicide bombers held, say they were to kill Panchagarh judges

Hasan Jahid Tusher, from Panchagarh
Police yesterday arrested three cadres of Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), including one who planted a bomb in front of the Panchagarh district judge court on August 17, from a residence in the district and recovered a large amount of bomb making materials, books, weighing machine and other paraphernalia.
The arrestees, Tanviruzzaman alias Salman alias Murad, and Shafiqul are from Dinajpur, and
Ashjad alias Awkat is from Dimla upazila in Nilphamari. Shafiqul and Awkat denied involvement with the JMB.
The police said the arrests were made based on information extracted from Abdul Awal, son-in-law of the suspected chief of the JMB, Abdur Rahman. Awal had been arrested from Thakurgaon on Friday.
Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) and a large contingent of the police from Thakurgaon and Panchagarh took ®he ^tar
Awal with them to arrest Murad and the others from the New Slum area in the district. Panchagarh District Senior Police Super Skeikh Nazmul Alam led the operation.
Murad told The Daily Star that he is the key planner of the operations to kill the judges in the district. "I had planned to kill the judges including District Judge Rashidul Hasan Patwari two times earlier but failed due to police vigilance at the court and at the judges' residential area," he said adding that a person named Rakib (alias) hailing from Dinajpur, who is the district leader of JMB, had instructed him to kill the judges.
"Awal met me in my residence Friday morning and gave me two packets containing bomb making materials. He asked me not to open the packets until further instruction. We had an hour long meeting and I took him to the bus terminal to see him off Friday afternoon," Murad said.
He said he had met Bangla Bhai and Abdur Rahman during his five-day stay in Bagmara upazila when he took part in operations against the Sarbaharas (different factions of underground armed left groups) there.
"A month and a half after the August 17 serial blast across the country, the JMB high command directed us to establish Islamic rule in the country by killing the judges and from then on we have been planning to kill the judges," he said.
He claimed himself as a former activist of the Debiganj unit of the ruling alliance partner Jamaat-e-Islami's student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS) and said he joined the JMB in 2002 during the US attack on Afghanistan when one of his friend Jamil, also a former ICS member, asked him to join the outfit.
"At least 300 JMB cadres including myself were trained in operating AK-47s, 9mm pistols, and six shooters on Tistar Char (shoal on the Tista River) area under Haragas upazila in Rangpur. We used to stay in different mosques as members of Tablig Jamaat," he said.
"If the JMB high command had approved my plan to kill the district judge before the killing of the two judges in Jhalakathi then our suicide squad members would come to the district and kill the judge," he said. "I don't know whether anyone will come to kill the judges now."
The police have been interrogating Murad till filing of this report at 2:00pm. Panic gripped the people in the two district headquarters since the arrests of several JMB cadres in the last two days.
Judges of the districts expressed fear for their lives. Additional police have been deployed on the court premises and the residential areas of the judges in both the districts.
Police Super of Panchagarh Shafiqul Islam told journalists that they have foiled JMB's plan to kill the judges, as they have been alert. "Security has been beefed up in the district and the police have been asked to stay alert," he said. "The plans of the JMB could not be executed as we have been alerted." SECURITY BEEFED UP INTANGAIL Our Tangail correspondent reports that plainclothesmen of different intelligence agencies have been keeping strict watch on different mosques in Tangail fearing possible bomb attacks by members of the Islamist suicide squads of the banned JMB and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB).
The law enforcers deployed additional plainclothesmen around the mosques before the Juma prayers on Friday, intelligence sources said.
A suicide squad of the JMB killed two judges, Shohel Ahmed and Jagannath Pandey, in Jhalakathi on Monday.
After the incident the Tangail police beefed up security around the judge court, quarters of the judges, the district jail and at other strategic installations of the district headquarter. Several check posts have also been set up.
Earlier during the Ramadan, the JMB had threatened to blow up the district jail through leaflets circulated at the district headquarter mosque. AWAL ON REMAND
Our Dinajpur and Rajshahi correspondents report that the Thakurgaon police took six Islamist militants including Awal, the number three man of the seven-member Majlish-e-Sura which is the leading core of the JMB, to a 10-day remand. The police said they produced the militants to the court asking for a 15-day remand but the court granted 10 days. Awal, who used to look after the financial matters and the logistics of weapons procurement for the JMB, was scheduled to be handed over to the Joint Interrogation Cell in Dhaka last night.