Bangladesh Executes HuJI Chief And His Associates For 2008 Grenade Attack

In what be seen as a strong message to Islamists in that country, the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) chief Mufti Abdul Hannan and his two associates were executed by Bangladesh on Wednesday.

The three were sentenced to death in 2008 for the grenade attack four years earlier at a 14th-century Sufi shrine in Sylhet, which killed three people and injured the British high commissioner at the time.

Hannan was hanged at Kashimpur Jail in Gazipur along with his accomplice Sharif Shahedul alias Bipul at 10:01 PM, Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan was quoted. His associate Delwar Hossain Ripon was executed in Sylhet jail, the minister added.

Bangladesh's highest court last month upheld the death sentence, rejecting the final appeals by Hannan and the two associates, Delwar Hossain and Sharif Shahedul Islam.

They had sought clemency from the Bangladesh President in a last-ditch attempt to commute the execution orders to life sentences, but he rejected their pleas.

In recent years, both Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal has been a victim of Islamist violence. However, Bangladesh—even after having Islam as its state religion—has tried to fight back against Islamist terror while West Bengal, being a part of secular India, seems to have given in to it.