Bangladesh captures second top militant

Bangladesh captured its second top militant within a week after security forces waged a gunbattle on Monday in a northern district, police said.
They said Siddikul Islam Bangla Bhai, chief of the outlawed Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh group, was arrested along with his wife and two associates at a hideout in the district of Mymensingh.
Bangla Bhai's capture came just four days after another top fugitive Islamist, Shayek Abdur Rahman, was detained in the north-eastern town of Sylhet. Shayek gave up without a fight and is believed to have provided information which led to Bangla Bhai's capture.
Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, who has been criticised by her opponents for failing to tackle a vicious bombing campaign blamed on Islamists, congratulated security forces for their "courage and valour in accomplishing a difficult mission."
Inspector General of Police Abdul Qayyum said with the fall of Shayek Rahman and Bangla Bhai, "I believe 90 percent of the Islamist militancy has been crushed. We are thankful to those who made it possible and those who supported them."
Bangla Bhai was wounded in the battle and later flown to the capital Dhaka by military helicopter.
"He is now being treated at a forces' hospital," a police officer said without giving details.
Two other militants were also wounded and an officer of the elite Rapid Action Battalion force suffered a gunshot wound to the head.
Police earlier said one militant had been killed, but later said they took one of the wounded to be dead.
"These are home-grown Islamist terrorists, no foreign links have yet been established," State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfuzzaman Babar told a news conference.
Security forces surrounded Bangla Bhai's hideout at around midnight on Sunday and closed in before sunrise.
Police said the militant and his men threw bombs at security forces and later opened fire, triggering a shootout. A part of the house, where the militants were holed up, was blown up in the fighting, a witness said.
Intelligence officials said the arrest of Shayek Rahman last week and his subsequent interrogation had helped them in tracking down Bangla Bhai. "He didn't have a clue until the net was completely drawn on him," said an intelligence officer. Shayek led another outlawed Islamist group, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen.
Both groups are fighting for the introduction of sharia law in Bangladesh, a mainly Muslim democracy, and are blamed for a wave of bombings, including suicide attacks, that have killed at least 30 people and wounded 150 since last August.
The opposition Awami League and its allies branded the capture of the top militants as "part of a set game by the government to divert attention from other pressing issues." "They need to protect the militants in their own fold," Awami general secretary Abdul Jalil said on Monday, repeating an allegation that the Islamist radicals were linked to Khaleda's ruling coalition partner, the Jamaat-i-Islami party.
Jamaat's secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid strongly refuted the charge again on Monday, saying that Shayek Rahman and Bangla Bhai were in no way linked to Jamaat.
"Awami League is spreading such falsehoods because they do not like the government reining in the militants, who in the name of Islam are killing people and causing harm to the country," he told a news conference.
"Rather they wanted the militants to lead the country into chaos, where the opposition would find it easier to fish in troubled waters," said Mujahid, who is also the social welfare minister.