Friday, August 4 2006 18:14 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Dhaka: Former Bangladesh prime minister and opposition leader Sheikh Hasina has charged that the nabbing of 26 Islamists undergoing military training was meant to 'impress' visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher.

"Militants are partners of the government Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) kingpins Sheikh Abdur Rahman and Bangla Bhai were caught when US President Bush was visiting India. The government catches a few militants whenever foreign guests visit Bangladesh," she was quoted by UNB news agency as telling her Awami League party workers.

She strongly criticised the activities of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a member of the ruling coalition, alleging that the Jamaat had 15,000 guerrillas and was operating its own training camps in different parts of the country.

Sections of media emphasised that the trainer nabbed at the camp, Abdur Rouf, a Pakistan-trained Afghan war veteran, had been arrested twice but had been let off. Rouf allegedly has links with members of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), The Daily Star said.

Those arrested have been remanded to police custody, but no charges have been pressed, the newspaper reported from Mymensingh in northern Bangladesh, from where the training camp run by Rouf in the deep jungles was discovered.

Hasina ridiculed the government claims of uprooting militancy.

"There are 2,000 suicide squads of militant outfits in the country... none have been arrested till now, but the government claims that it has uprooted the militancy from Bangladesh," he said.

"We believe the arrest of the new bunch of JMB operatives and unearthing of the secret training camp in Mymensingh go to show only the tip of the iceberg. There is every possibility that many more such camps exist in the country and the law enforcing agencies have their jobs cut out. They will have to trace and clamp down on them. The nation wants to see every single JMB ring leader and field level operative appear before the court of law, and justice done to them," The Daily Star said in an editorial.