Bangladesh arrests 3,000 in crackdown on radicals

Dhaka - Bangladesh is reeling from a wave of brutal killings that have spiked in recent weeks, with religious minorities and liberal activists the chief targets.

Bangladesh police have arrested more than 3,000 people in a sweeping nationwide crackdown following a spate of gruesome murders, they said on Saturday, as the prime minister vowed to catch "each and every killer".
Those detained include 37 suspected militants and hundreds of potential criminals who previously had warrants out against them, as well as several hundred ordinary arrests, police said.
Bangladesh is reeling from a wave of brutal killings that have spiked in recent weeks, with religious minorities, secular thinkers and liberal activists the chief targets.
"We have arrested 3,155 people including 37 militants as part of the special drive over the last 24 hours," A.K.M Shahidur Rahman, deputy police inspector general said. "The militants included 27 members of Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB)," he said.
The JMB is one of the main domestic militant outfits blamed by the government, which rejects claims from Daesh group and a South Asian branch of Al Qaeda that they are behind the killings.
The country's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told a meeting of her ruling Awami League party on Saturday that police would stamp out the violence.
"It may take time, but God willing, we will be able to bring them under control," Hasina told a meeting of Awami League party on Saturday.
However, Bangladesh opposition parties immediately accused the police of using the crackdown to suppress political dissent.
"Hundreds of opposition activists have been arrested in the police drive," Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) secretary general Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said.
"In the name of the crackdown against militants, many ordinary and innocent people are being detained."
Hasina has accused the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami of orchestrating the attacks after they failed to topple the government in last year's transport blockade.