Two militants held with drone-making components in Bangladesh

Two "active leaders" of an Islamist extremist outfit have been arrested here with components used for making a remote-controlled surveillance drone to map key structures for potential terror attacks, police said today.

The members of the Ansarullah Bangla Team, which came into prominence when it launched two brutal attacks on atheist bloggers in 2013, were arrested from a house in Dhaka's Jatrabari area last night, said Detective Branch officials. Tanjil Hossain Babu and Golam Maula Mohan were "active leaders" of the militant outfit, claimed Dhaka Metropolitan Police's Joint Commissioner Monirul Islam.

"They were running jihadists at the behest of their Guru Mawlana Jasim Uddin Rahmani," bdnews24 online quoted Islam as saying. He claimed that the two confessed that they were trying to develop quad helicopters or drones capable of flying over 25 to 30 storey buildings.

"They were trying to make a drone or a quad helicopter to photograph important structures in the country for subsequent attacks."

Drones are un-manned aerial surveillance vehicle. They captured the imagination of the public in the last few years after the US widely used them in countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan. Apart from military purposes, these aerial devices are also used to assess weather conditions and in rescue operations.

The chief of Ansarullah Bangla Team Mufti Jasim Uddin Rahmani was arrested along with 30 other activists from Barguna in August this year. Police had then said that the outfit was planning to attack police stations and other establishments across the country to start a 'Jihad' (religious war) to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina.