Police however arrested a member of the banned militant group,
Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, thought to have been lying low since
six of its leaders were hanged in 2007.
Bangladesh arrests Islamist militant over killing of professor(DNA india)
Bangladesh police have arrested an Islamist
militant charged with the murder of a professor amid a surge in deadly
attacks against liberal activists and other minorities in the South
Asian nation, a senior officer said on Tuesday.
Rezaul
Karim Siddiquee, 58, an English professor at Rajshahi University, was
hacked to death on his way to work last month. Islamic State claimed
responsibility for the killing of the professor for his "calling to atheism".
Police
however arrested a member of the banned militant group,
Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, thought to have been lying low since
six of its leaders were hanged in 2007.
The
suspect was arrested on Sunday and pleaded guilty in court, Rajshahi
city police chief Mohammad Shamsuddin said. A defence lawyer was not
immediately available for comment.
"Four members of the local group took part in the killing mission," Shamsuddin told a news conference, adding a search was on for three others.
The
Muslim-majority nation of 160 million people has seen a series of
attacks over the past year in which atheist bloggers, academics,
religious minorities and foreign aid workers have been killed.
Al
Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent has also claimed responsibility for
some of the attacks, including the killing of two gay rights activists
last month. But police say home-grown militant groups are behind the
violence.
Dozens of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen members
have been arrested and at least five killed in shootouts since November,
as security forces step up a crackdown on militants seeking to make the
moderate Muslim nation a sharia-based state.
In
2005, the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen set off nearly 500 bombs almost
simultaneously on a single day, including in Dhaka. Subsequent suicide
attacks on courts killed 25 people and injured hundreds.
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