By IANS,
Dhaka : Twentyone suspected women militants and an extremist man were arrested Thursday in the southern Barisal district by Bangladesh’s elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an official said.
RAB official Lt Commander K.M. Mamunur Rashid told the Daily Star that 22 militants, including 21 women, were rounded up while holding a meeting in a house Thursday at 4 a.m.
The women were clad in burqa (black veil and top to toe gown). Barisal is some 170 km from here.
“We were closely monitoring their movements since long and it seemed to us that there is something suspicious so we’ve nabbed them,” Rashid said.
During preliminary interrogation, the suspects denied their involvement with any militant activities, claiming they gathered there to discuss only Islamic books.
Local police earlier said they have tightened security measures in Barisal town after staff members of three international organisations received death threat from suspected extremists.
Officials of the United Nations Children’s Fund, World Food Program and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Barisal Monday received letters with death threat, which were sent by post in the name of a banned Islamist outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).