Hizbut Tahrir suspect held in city

Police arrested a suspected member of banned outfit Hizbut Tahrir Bangladesh from a mosque at Bashiruddin Road in city’s Kalabagan on Friday afternoon. On October 23, 2009, the government banned all kinds of activities of Hizbut Tahrir Bangladesh in the interest of public security as it had been carrying out ‘anti-state, anti-government, anti-people and anti-democratic activities’ for long in the country. Contacted, Sub-Inspector Krishna Chandra Mitra, duty officer of Kalabagan police station, said police had information that the Hizb-ut-Tahrir activists were distributing leaflets after Juma’ prayer outside the mosque at Bashiruddin Road. A team of Kalabagan police station went to the spot and detained Sohan Hafiz, 32, while his other Hizbut Tahrir associates managed to flee the scene sensing the presence of the law enforcers, SI Krshna said. Hizbut Tahrir is an international Islamist political party founded in Jerusalem in 1953.The party started its activities in Bangladesh in 2000, according to a news agency.