By IANS
Dhaka : Months after its top leadership was hanged for the killing of two judges, Bangladesh's banned Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) is regrouping and has found a new chief in former Jamaat-e-Islami leader Maulana Saidur Rahman.
The JMB, whose supreme leaders Shaikh Abdur Rahman and Siddiqul Islam, alias Bangla Bhai, were among the six hanged in February for the assassination of two judges, has become active again. And the military-backed interim government has given strict orders to the police and paramilitary forces to arrest the new leadership.
Home Secretary Abdul Karim has asked all the law enforcing and intelligence agencies to launch massive drives across the country to immediately arrest "those who have taken the leadership of JMB under a new guise", New Age reported Wednesday.
"The JMB has formed a new committee to run the organisation after the execution of the six front-ranking leaders in March," an investigator was quoted as saying in a meeting at the home ministry, where it was also disclosed that Saidur Rahman, a former Jamaat-e-Islami leader from Habiganj in the country's north, is at the helm of the new leadership.
Hundreds of activists of different Islamist militant outfits, especially operatives of the JMB, who went into hiding after the arrest, trial and execution of six JMB kingpins, are trying to regroup under the new leadership, said intelligence sources.
The meeting, which used to be held every month to review the progress of the investigation of the countrywide bombings, took place after a long gap of eight months due to last year's political situation.
The home secretary, however, ruled out the possibility of any attack by the JMB. "We don't apprehend any such act but we are very alert so that the militants can't emerge again," he said, adding that he would involve religious leaders and imams to launch the anti-militant campaign "with renewed vigour".