JMB’s explosives expert Boma Mizan captured

Wife explodes bomb to escape arrest; finally surrenders to Rab with severe injuries after 4-hr midnight raid at a Mirpur house
After years in the hunt for him, the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) last night captured ‘Boma Mizan’, explosives expert of banned Islamist outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), at Taltola in the city’s Mirpur area.
His arrest was followed by a high drama that unfolded when a Rab team took him to his house at 61/3, Uttar Pirerbagh.
As they got on the doorstep at around 10:30pm, Mizan gave his wife Sharmin some coded instructions, and immediately afterwards a bomb went off inside.
Witnesses said the blast has blown off Sharmin’s right wrist and wounded her two children–two-year-old son and a few months old girl.
The boy sustained head injuries, while the baby girl’s dress bore bloodstains.
Rab rushed them all to a private clinic in Mirpur.
After resisting arrest for around four hours, Mizan’s wife gave in at 2:15am.
Around 100 law enforcers including some top-ranking Rab officers participated in the raid. They recovered a pistol, two bombs, two grenades, several rounds of ammunition, and bomb-making materials.
Mizan came to Rab’s attention after countrywide serial blasts on August 17, 2005. The intelligence unit of the elite crime busters gathered that he had long been working as explosives expert for JMB.
Besides, JMB operatives rounded up during the last four years told interrogators that Mizan had been training the militants how to make bombs and improvised grenades.
Nishat Mohammad, owner of the four-story building, said he rented out the second floor to Mizan on April 1. The JMB man introduced himself as Imrul Kayes, and claimed he was a contractor. He also said he hailed from Jessore.
‘Boma Mizan’ was on the spot throughout the operation. There, he told The Daily Star correspondents, “I don’t explode bombs; I rather train others how to make bombs and grenades.”
He also said he joined JMB as a full-timer in 2001 and had close relations with executed militant kingpins Shaekh Abdur Rahman and Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai.
He also said he had visited a number of countries including Afghanistan. He however did not reply to query how they manage funds to run their organisation.
Back in 2003, he was arrested at Jhikargachha of Jessore, but released on bail after three months. Since then he had been on the run.
With neatly trimmed beards and clad in pants and shirt, Mizan looked quite oblivious to what was happening around him. “I am on a path to justice and truth, you too should follow the lead,” he told reporters at the scene.
Meanwhile, a Rab official said Mizan told them he had met present JMB chief Moulana Saidur Rahman on several occasions. He however did not say anything about his whereabouts.
Saidur took the outfit’s helm after Abdur Rahman and five others were executed in 2006.
Coming from Shekher Bhita of Jamalpur town, Mizan is son of late Shuja Mian.
A Chittagong court tried him in absentia along with JMB Chittagong division chief Javed Iqbal and two other cadres last year. They were sentenced to 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment each for bomb attack on a judge in 2005.

Courtesy of The Daily Star