Bangladesh has arrested three Supreme Court lawyers for allegedly passing thousands of dollars to a new Islamic militant group in the port city of Chittagong, police said Wednesday.
The three lawyers including a British-trained female barrister were picked up in the capital Dhaka on Tuesday night by Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which is tasked with tackling militancy in the Muslim-majority nation.
“They were arrested for providing funding of 10.8 million taka to a new militant group called Shaheed Hamza Brigade in Chittagong,” RAB spokesman Mufti Mahmud Khan told AFP.
The little-known group first emerged in April this year when the RAB arrested four alleged militants and seized arms and weapons including modern assault rifles at a hideout in Chittagong.
The RAB this week also detained three suspected Islamist militants over the murder of two prominent atheist bloggers, including a British citizen who police said was the “main planner”.