From Anisur Rahman
Dhaka

Bangladesh Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty of a top Islamist militant for carrying out a bomb attack in 2005 that had left eight secular activists dead, authorities said today.

“The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court yesterday confirmed the death penalty of JMB (Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh) operative Asaduzzaman Chowdhury, upholding the trial court and the subsequent High Court judgments,” a spokesman of the attorney general’s office told PTI.

Eight people had died and 40 others injured in the 2005 attack on the offices of two secular groups that organised cultural events.

JMB was banned after a series of bombings across the country in 2005.

A special Dhaka court in 2008 had handed down Chowdhury and two other fellow JMB members the death penalty. His other two accomplices were tried in absentia and are still on the run.

JMB’s founder Shaikh Abdur Rahman and five of his key associates were hanged in March 2007 and hundreds of JMB men were hunted down as Bangladesh launched a massive anti- militancy campaign.

PTI