Explosive and explosive-making materials are displayed by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) after a raid on a banned Islamist extremist outfit, in Chittagong, yesterday.
Dhaka: Bangladesh's elite security force yesterday arrested five suspected members of a banned Islamist extremist outfit who it said were planning to break their leaders out of jail.
The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) said the men were members of the banned Harkatul Jihad al Islami (HuJI), whose leader Mufti Abdul Hannan this week had his death sentence upheld by the country's highest court.
The group is accused of orchestrating a series of deadly blasts targeting a Christian church, an Ahmadi Muslim mosque, and rallies of secular activists and communists.
"They (HuJI) remained inactive for a while and were trying to reorganise and plan attacks on law enforcers and prison vans to free their arrested leaders," RAB spokesman Mufti Mahmud Khan said.
The five were arrested in two separate raids and operations in the southeastern city of Chittagong, which has not had suffered a militant attack since since October last year.
Khan said yesterday that the three of the arrests were made at a hideout from where the RAB had recovered 12 IEDs, handguns, ammunition and jihadi books.
