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Muslim World News Updates |
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31 March 2009 DHAKA: Investigators yesterday
interrogated a top leader of Bangladesh’s Islamist
party Jamaat-e-Islami over last month’s troop mutiny
at the headquarters of the county’s border force,
which killed 75 people, officials said.
Coming out of the headquarters of the Criminal
Investigation Department after interrogation,
Jamaat-e-Islami Assistant Secretary-General Abdur
Razzak said the department summoned him to taint his
political image.
Department officials denied the allegation of
harassment, saying the three-and-a-half hours of
questioning was necessary for the investigation.
“We have verified some information obtained from
previous interrogations of soldiers,” Abdul Kahhar
Akond, investigation officer, told reporters. “We may
call some other people for the sake of a proper
investigation into the rebellion and killings.”
Razzak was the first politician interrogated in
connection with the mutiny at the Dhaka headquarters
of the Bangladesh Rifles border force since the
department began investigating the mutiny more than a
month ago.
“I don’t have any connection with the carnage,”
Razzak, a lawyer by profession, said, adding that he
was in the High Court on Feb. 25, the day the mutiny
erupted.
It was reported that he had spoken to some members
of the border guards on Feb. 25 and the government
imposed a ban on his travel abroad. He denied the
allegation.
Razzak sought protection from the High Court, which
asked authorities not to harass or arrest him or bar
him from traveling abroad until April 5.
“They questioned me in accordance with the High
Court directives,” Razzak said, adding that
investigators wanted to know about his education,
family, overseas travel and whereabouts on Feb. 25 and
26.
They also examined his passport but did not seize
it, he added.
Bangladeshi investigators, assisted by agents from
the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Britain’s
Scotland Yard, arrested as many as 750 Bangladesh
Rifles soldiers suspected to be involved in the troop
rebellion against their commanders.
Earlier, a government minister coordinating the
investigations by three separate agencies said he had
suspected a militant-link in the mutiny. |
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