Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) arrested Azizul Haque Islamabadi, central organising secretary of Hefazat-e-Islam from Hathazari of Chatogram district.
Deputy Commissioner of DB Asaduzzaman Ripon confirmed it on Monday.
According to the DB officer, Azizul Haque was arrested on Sunday evening and sent to court on Monday.
However, Hefazat's Publicity Secretary Zakaria Noman Foyezi claimed that Azizul was arrested on Sunday after a meeting in Hathazari of Chattogram.
Hefazat-e-Islam’s Assistant Publicity Secretary Enamul Hasan Farooqui said Azizul was waiting for a bus at the Hathazari bus stand in Chattogram after the meeting was over yesterday.
He further claimed that Azizul Haque was last seen there and since then he could not be reached.
In a latest development, Azizul Haque was placed on a seven-day remand a day after his arrest in a case filed on May 6, 2013.
Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police of Detective Branch (DB) Atiqul Islam confirmed the court order. However, we sought 10 days of remand for the Hefazat leader, the ADC added.
Azizul Haque is also the spokesperson of the Hefazat and one of its top leaders.
Eight years elapsed but no progress was made in investigation into the cases filed over the May 5 mayhem in the capital’s Motijheel during the Dhaka-siege programme of Hefazat-e-Islam in 2013.
Fifty-three cases were filed against around 50,000 leaders and activists of Hefazat and Jamaat-e-Islami in the capital while 30 more cases were also filed in others parts of the country for carrying out violence.
The investigators made headway in only four cases -- three in Dhaka and one in Chittagong -- but they are yet to complete the probe in the rest of the 79 cases even after four years. The unusual delay of police in probing the cases has created a mystery.
On May 5 in 2013, Hefazat leaders and activists held a rally in Motijheel Shapla Chattar to realise a 13-point demand, including death penalty to the atheist bloggers and formulation of a law to stop defaming Islam and the Prophet.
From the rally, the Hefazat men got locked in deadly clashes with law enforcers and the ruling Awami League men and turned the capital city into a battlefield. They set fire to hundreds of shops, vehicles and police outposts and looted shops, including those having Islamic books.
Hefazat rowdies had gone berserk in Motijheel, Baitul Mukarram, Paltan and Dainik Bangla intersections, harming businesses and damaging public property. At night, lawmen during a joint operation flushed them out of Shapla Square in Motijheel.