The joint forces detained Moulana Habibur Rahman, nayeb-e-ameer of a faction of Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish, from his father-in-law's house at the city's Jherjheri para early yesterday. Habibur was arrested on charge of having links with the militant groups and he was shown arrested under the emergency power rules, a police official said. After his arrest at 1:10am, the law enforcers took him to the Sylhet Kotwali Police Station where officials quizzed him. "Mahmoud! This is a Number 6! I distinctly asked for a Number 7 truncheon!"
"Sorry, Sahib! You broke the Number 7 on Akter Hossein! There's a new one on order!"
"Well, drive a nail through the Number 6, then! We'll just have to make due."
"Right, Sahib!"
At about 1:00pm yesterday, Kotwali police produced Habibur before the Sylhet Sadar cognizance magistrate's court, wherefrom he was sent to the jail lock-up.
In 1994, 'Sahaba Sainik Parishad' run by Habibur announced Tk 50,000 bounty on the head of writer Taslima Nasrin. On October 13 that year, the man with several hundred people put blockade in front of the deputy commissioner's office to press for hanging Taslima. Habibur once told about his experience of joining training programmes in Afghanistan. However, after the emergence of militant groups like JMB, he started denying his links with and support for Afghan wars.
Moulana Habibur Rahman, who is also the principal of Jameya Madania Islamia at Kazirbazar, used his students against Afsar Uddin, a lessee of the adjacent Kazirbazar cattle market, to 'extend' the madrasa in 2005. Habibur also grabbed some valuable lands of the LGED at the city's Bagbari in 1992 for setting up a Nurani Madrasa. However, the district administration freed the government lands shortly afterwards.
Habibur Rahman, who was an ally of the BNP-led alliance government, later shifted his political line and managed nomination of the Awami League-led combine for Sylhet-6 constituency (Golapganj and Beanibazar upazilas) ahead of the election scheduled for January (later cancelled). The matter fuelled agitation among the rank and file in the AL-led combine.
Beany Bazaar. Really. We did not make that up.