Dhaka, April 12 (BDNews24): Mufti Hannan, who is considered the father of Islamic militancy in Bangladesh, was hanged with his two accomplices at Gazipur on Wednesday.
The Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (UJI) leader, walked to the gallows with his accomplice Sharif Shahedul alias Bipul at 10:01pm on Wednesday, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told bdnews24.com.
His other accomplice Delwar Hossain Ripon was executed at the same time in Sylhet jail, the home minister said.
They have paid for killing three persons in a grenade attack on the then British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury in Sylhet in 2004. The deceased included two policemen.
The envoy was injured along with nearly 40 employees of the Sylhet district administration.
The Supreme Court on Mar 19 this year upheld the death penalties for the HUJI leaders and later rejected their pleas to review the decision, saying they could not be acquitted for pre-mediated crimes.
The death sentences were executed on a day when the people in Bangladesh are preparing to celebrate the Bangla New Year.
Mufti Hannan had also been sentenced to death for killing 10 people and injuring scores in a bomb attack on Chhayanaut’s programme at Ramna Batamul on the Bangla New Year in 2001.
It is said that militancy was introduced to Bangladesh through the HuJI bomb attack on a programme of Udichi Shilpigosthi in Jessore by the end of the last century.
Mufti Hannan took to militancy while studying in a madrasa in Pakistan. He had also fought a war at the Afghanistan border.
Said to be the mastermind of 13 terrorist attacks, including an attempt on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s life, Mufti Hannan was born in Gopalganj, the home district of the Prime Minister.
He had faced trial for planting a bomb made with 76 kgs of explosives near the venue of a public rally addressed by Hasina at Kotaliparha in Gopalganj in 2000.
On Mar 6 this year, a prison van carrying him from court to Gazipur’s Kashimpur prison came under a bomb attack, in what the police say was an attempt to snatch him.
He was arrested in Dhaka on Oct 1, 2005.
(HUJI leader Mufti Hannan speaking to his wife and daughter)
