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Agence France-Presse

An Islamist militant suspected of attacking a publisher last year has been arrested, Bangladesh police said on Thursday, in what they described as an important breakthrough in their investigations into a spate of horrific attacks.
Suman Hossain Patowari, 20, was arrested in Dhaka late on Wednesday over a brutal attack that wounded publisher Ahmedur Rashid Tutul and two others at his office in the capital in October.
The arrest comes amid a nationwide police anti-militant crackdown that has seen more than 11,000 people, including 176 suspected Islamist militants, detained since Friday.
Police said Patowari belonged to banned Bangladesh militant outfit, Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT).
“He admitted he himself hacked publisher Tutul three times during the attack,” said Monirul Islam, who leads the police’s counterterrorism unit.
Islam told reporters that the arrest of Patowari represented “an important breakthrough” in smashing the leadership of the ABT, a group suspected of carrying out several attacks.
Publisher of slain atheist writer and two secular bloggers attacked in Bangladesh
Three assailants wielding machetes and meat cleavers attacked Tutul, together with a secular blogger and a poet, at his publishing firm in the capital, leaving them in a pool of blood.
Tutul had published books by a controversial Bangladeshi-American atheist writer Avijit Roy, who was murdered outside a book fair earlier in the year.
On the same day Tutul was attacked, another secular publisher was slaughtered at his office near Dhaka University.
A group named Ansar al-Islam, which claims to be a Bangladesh branch of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), claimed responsibility for both attacks.
However in a new development, police said on Thursday that ABT and Ansar al-Islam were the same outfit.
“Ansar al-Islam and Ansarullah Bangla Team are the same people,” said Dhaka police spokesman Masudur Rahman.
Moreover, officers said that neither ABT nor Ansar al-Islam had any proven link to the international jihadist network al-Qaeda.
Bangladesh teachers, students take to streets after secular publisher hacked to death
Bangladesh is reeling from a wave of killings of religious minorities and secular and liberal activists that have spiked in recent weeks.
On Wednesday a Hindu lecturer was left seriously wounded after being attacked in a southern district.
Earlier this month, an elderly Hindu priest was found nearly decapitated in a rice field, a Hindu monastery worker was hacked to death and a Christian grocer was murdered near a church.
Over 5,000 arrested as Bangladesh cracks down on extremists
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has vowed to catch “each and every killer” as her government comes under mounting international pressure to end the attacks.
Nearly 50 people have been murdered over the past three years.
The Islamic State group and AQIS have claimed responsibility for many of the murders. But the police and the government say international jihadist groups have no presence in the country.


Bangladesh arrests Islamist militant over gruesome murder of secular publisher

Bangladesh police escort Suman Hossain Patowari (centre) on Thursday after his arrest in connection with an attack on publisher Ahmedur Rashid Tutul last year. Photo: AFP

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More than 11,000, including 176 ‘Islamic militants’ detained in nationwide anti-militant crackdown


Bangladesh arrests Islamist militant over gruesome murder of secular publisher

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}More than 11,000, including 176 ‘Islamic militants’ detained in nationwide anti-militant crackdown

More than 11,000, including 176 ‘Islamic militants’ detained in nationwide anti-militant crackdown