Mufti Abdul Hannan, chief of Bangladesh's Islamic militant outfit the Harkatul Jihad, who was arrested in early hours Sunday, confessed to interrogating police about his bomb planting for assassination of Opposition Leader and former prime minister Sheikh Hasina in 2000.

He also confessed that he was the mastermind in the countrywide bombings on August 17, 2005.

In a drive in the capital Dhaka Sunday, Mufti Hannan, one of the country's top Islamic militant leader, was arrested by the elite strike force of Bangladesh the Rapid Action Battalion.

A Detective Branch police, who is among the interrogating team, told Xinhua Monday, "We have taken him to our custody for interrogation on demand from a Dhaka court for 10 days." "We are trying to get about his plan to kill Hasina and about the August 17 bombings," the police said demanding anonymity.

Hannan is the prime accused in the plot to assassinate then prime minister Sheikh Hasina in Kotali para in Gopalganj on July 20,2000. He admitted that he was the mastermind of planting of a 76-kg bomb near a meeting venue of Sheikh Hasina in Gopalganj, 209 km southwest of Dhaka. The bomb was recovered by police before Hasina addressed the meeting.

Mufti Hannan, who appeared in the court Sunday in a bullet proof vest, also confessed that he was the mastermind in bombings in the city's Badda residential district on August 17 bomb blasts in which three people were killed and over 150 other injured.

The daily Janakantha (people's voice) on Monday quoted intelligence police as saying that Hannan had a meeting with Abdur Rahman, chief of Jamaatul Mujahideen, the banned Islamic militant party for the strings of bomb blasts across the country on August 17, and Bangla Bhai alias Siddiaqul Islam, operation commander of another Islamic militant group Jagrata Muslim Janata, before the August 17 bombings in a bid to make Bangladesh an Islamic state.

The middle aged Mufti Hannan, who lived most of his life span abroad, reportedly had received militant training in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He also visited India and several Middle Eastern countries.

Hannan had directly participated in the war in Afghanistan against the former Soviet Union. During the war he received a bullet injury in his hand and then he returned to Bangladesh in 1995 and formed his militant group Harkatul Jihad, which was banned by the government.

He came in the limelight of Bangladesh's politics after he announced at a Islamic rally in 1999 to establish a Taleban like government in Bangladesh by 2000.

The daily said that his arrest was a turning point in Bangladesh 's politics.

Source: Xinhua