Staff Reporter :
Shafiqur Rahman, who was sentenced to death on charge of murder in a bomb attack on a Bangla New Year’s programme at city’s Ramna Batamul two decades ago, selected teaching profession in various madrasas under a pseudonym to avoid arrest.
He taught at different madrasas in Narsingdi district after changing his name as Abdul Karim instead of Mufti Shafiqur Rahman.
Even, he also served as an imam at a local mosque in Narsingdi.
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) spokesperson Commander Khandaker Al Moin said this while addressing a press conference in the city on Friday.
Earlier on Thursday, the first day of the Bangla calendar Pahela Baisakh,
the RAB personnel arrested Mufti Shafiqur Rahman from Kishoreganj’s Bhairab area.
“After the attack on Ramna Batamul, he remained covertly involved with the militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) until 2008. He started to work in a madrasa in Narsingdi in 2008,” the RAB spokesperson said.
The 61-year-old Shafiqur was also sentenced to life in prison over the grenade attack on an Awami League rally on August 21, 2004.
He used to spread ‘misleading religious propaganda’ while hiding in the guise of an imam, Moin added.
Apart from the Ramna Batmul and August 21 grenade attacks, the RAB also shed light on his involvement in the 2005 grenade attack on an Awami League rally at Boidder Bazar in Habiganj.
Former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria and four other Awami League members died while more than 100 people were injured in the attack.
“Shafiqur would use his guile to meet his family members at different places after he went into hiding. After 21 years in hiding, he was tracked down at one of the meeting points and arrested,” Moin said.
Ten people were killed after a bomb had exploded during leading cultural troupe Chhayanaut’s programme at the capital’s Ramna Batamul on the morning of April 14, 2001.
According to the case dossier, the militants targeted the Pahela Baishakh event as they considered it ‘anti-Islamic’.
Mufti Abdul Hannan, a top Huji leader, Shafiqur and 12 other militants were accused in the murder case filed for death of 10 persons and many injured.
Shafiqur met Mufti Hannan while studying in Pakistan, Moin added.
A Dhaka court on June 23, 2014 sentenced to death Hannan, Shafiqur and six other accused and gave life imprisonment to six others in the case.
Besides Hannan and Shafiqur, Maulana Akbar Hossain, Arif Hasan Sumon, Maulana Tajuddin, Hafiz Jahangir Alam Badr, Maulana Abu Bakr alias Hafiz Selim Hawladar, and Maulana Abdul Hai also were given the capital punishment.
Shahadatullah Jewel, Maulana Sabbir, Shaokat Hossain alias Sheikh Farid, Maulana Abdur Rauf, Maulana Abu Taher and Maulana Yahia were sentenced to life.
Tajuddin, Jahangir, Abu Bakr, Abdul Hai are still absconding.
Hannan was hanged on April 12, 2017 over a grenade attack targeting former British high commissioner Anwar Choudhury.
