Bangladesh police arrest Dawood aide to probe terror links

A close aide of fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim was on Wednesday arrested after he completed a five-year jail term in Bangladesh and was sent to police custody for questioning over possible terror links.
Abdul Rauf alias Daud Merchant, who was convicted of killing music baron Gulshan Kumar in 1997, was remanded to police custody for three days by a court in Dhaka.

Merchant, 44, was re-arrested by police here after serving five years for illegally entering Bangladesh in May 2009. Metropolitan Magistrate M Nuru Mia placed Merchant on a three-day remand, court officials said. The police had sought his seven-day remand. Police said he was to be interrogated to find out if he had any links to militants.

Merchant was earlier handed down life imprisonment for the murder of Kumar. But he fled India while on a parole to visit his family in Mumbai. In May 2009, he was arrested again by Bangladesh Police from central Brahmanbaria district on a tip-off. Merchant was later convicted for intruding and illegally staying in Bangladesh and was released two days ago from Kashimpur prison at suburban Gazipur after serving five years in jail.

Police said they arrested merchant from Dhaka's Khilgaon area but earlier reports said he was actually arrested soon after his release from the jail in Gazipur. A sharpshooter, Merchant was arrested by Kolkata police in 2001 but he went into hiding after coming out on parole for 15 days and fled to Bangladesh. Bangladesh police earlier said he also managed to obtain a Bangladeshi passport. They said Merchant could also be involved in a 2004 weapons haul linked to India's separatist United Liberation Front of Assam.