B’desh detains 1,600 ‘radicals’

DHAKA/ AP

Authorities have rounded up about 1,600 criminal suspects, including a few dozen believed to be radicals, in a nationwide crackdown aimed at halting a wave of brutal attacks on minorities and activists in Bangladesh, police said on Saturday.
The attacks — including two Hindus in the last week — have alarmed the international community and raised questions about whether Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s secular government can maintain security for minorities in the Sunni Muslim-majority country.
Police and paramilitary soldiers fanned out across the country Thursday night, raiding suspected militant hideouts and detaining about 1,600 people by Friday night, police said.
The majority of those detained, however, are described as petty criminals. Only 37 of them are suspected to be radical militants, according to police spokesman Kamrul Islam. Those include three charged with alleged membership in the banned militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh.
None of those arrested is believed to be a high-level operator who might have organized or ordered attacks, police said. All the detainees are being held in jail.
Hasina’s government has faced criticism for failing to prosecute suspects for at least 18 killings carried out over the past two years. Victims include atheist bloggers, foreign aid workers, university professors, gay rights activists and religious minorities including Hindus, Christians and Shiite Muslims.
Hasina had announced the anti-militancy campaign after the wife of a police superintendent was shot and stabbed to death on June 5 as she was waiting with her son at a bus stop. The victim had been an ardent campaigner against militants, and her murder stunned the country’s establishment, many of whom considered the victim as one of their own.