Bangladesh arrests 37 suspected militants

More than 3,000 people, including 37 militants, have been arrested across Bangladesh in a sweeping crackdown on Islamists to halt a wave of fatal attacks on minorities and secular writers, as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday vowed to catch “each and every killer”.

He said the detainees included only 37 alleged radical ISIS terrorists while most were suspected to be petty criminals.

Prime Minister Hasina told a meeting of her ruling Awami League party that the police would stamp out the violence.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for 21 of the attacks while Al Qaeda has claimed most of the rest, according to monitoring group SITE Intelligence.

All their sources, financers and patrons of the criminals would be unearthed and brought to justice, she said. Pandey was taking his routine morning walk when several machete-wielding attackers hac-ked him in the neck, killing him on the spot only 200 yards away from the ashram.

None of the suspects are believed be the organiser or commissioner of the attacks, police said as investigations continued. The same month, a Hindu tailor was hacked to death and Bangladesh’s first gay magazine editor was murdered in his Dhaka flat by Islamists.

The latest attack came just hours after police said they launched a nationwide anti militancy drive, besides engaging elite anti crime Rapid Action Battalion and paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh.

Amnesty International has criticized the government for inaction, saying it is creating a culture of impunity.

“The brazen announcement by violent groups that they will continue targeting those they perceive as “insulting Islam” should shake the Bangladeshi authorities out of their complacency”, Champa Patel, the right’s group’s director in South Asia, said in a statement.

“Ignoring the problem is not a solution”.

However, the government has disputed these claims, with some members blaming opposition parties and local Islamist groups.

“The crackdown is a strategy which the government earlier used to suppress the people’s movement”.

“Hundreds of opposition activists have been arrested in the police drive”, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) secretary general Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told AFP.

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