The Rab members arrested Hannan along with his wife and four children at an Ananda Nagar house in Madhya Badda and took them to the Rab Headquarters.

Hannan, who also has links to international militant groups, is the operation commander of the Bangladesh chapter of the international Islamist militant organisation Harkatul Jihad.

Hannan told newspersons at the Rab office in Dhaka he has been staying in the country after the former home minister, now the commerce minister, Altaf Hossain Choudhury, assured him of "no fear" in staying in the country.

"Editor of monthly Madina Moulana Mohiuddin played the mediator between me and the home minister," Hannan added.

Accused in a sedition case, Mufti Hannan is also the prime accused in the plot to assassinate the then prime minister Sheikh Hasina in Kotalipara in Gopalganj on July 20, 2000.

Hannan had also submitted a mercy petition to Altaf to relieve him from the case of attempt to assassinate Hasina, he told the reporters.

He is sentenced to life-term imprisonment in an arms case filed after police seized a huge quantity of bomb-making materials and a foreign-made revolver from his house in Gopalganj town. The seizure came only four days into the planting of the bomb weighing 76kg to assassinate Hasina.

Law enforcers started a hectic search for Hannan along with militant kingpins Abdur Rahman and Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai after the August 17 serial blasts across the country, as he has been maintaining contact with Islamist militant groups. He was absconding for the last five years.

DRAMATIC OPERATION
The Rab over the last few days started raiding places in the city after it came to know about Hannan's probable whereabouts during an interrogation at the Task Force Interrogation (TFI) of his detained brother Munshi Anisuzzaman.

The elite force learnt that Hannan is staying at different places in the capital, particularly in North and South Badda, frequently shifting his addresses.

The Rab intelligence officials on Friday raided a Madhya Badda house on information that Hannan was staying there, but the drive yielded no result.

Talking to other residents and the house caretaker, the Rab members came to know Hannan had shifted to another house in the locality 15 days ago, carrying his household goods by rickshaw-vans.

The Rab officials soon located the house, No. E-5, at Ananda Nagar at midnight yesterday.

After confirming the presence of Hannan and his family on the first floor of the two-storey building, the Rab men woke up the owner and residents of the building and started checking their identities at about 5:30am.

As the identification process went on, Hannan tried to flee, seeing the collapsible gate of the house open.

"When Hannan ran away, some Rab men positioned outside chased him," said a member of the eight-member plainclothes team of the Rab intelligence wing.

"After running around 100 yards from the house, Hannan jumped into a pond. Two Rab men also jumped in the pond and caught him," he added.

Initially, the arrestee claimed he is not "Mufti Hannan".

The Rab took him back to the house where his wife, two sons and two daughters identified him as Mufti Hannan.

One of the Rab officials, who took part in the raid, said it was difficult to identify Hannan as he had trimmed his once-long beard and changed his hairstyle. His skin was also tanned.

Lt Colonel Gulzaruddin Ahmed, director of the Rab Intelligence Wing, told The Daily Star last night initially Hannan was not responding to any questions except for denying the allegations against him.

However, in the evening, Hannan assured the Rab officials that he will open his mouth.

The Rab also seized chemicals in a jerycan, six cellphone SIM cards, Tk 1.5 lakh, two large thermometers which were glued to explosives, three mobile chargers, one stopwatch, two wristwatches, huge amount of small pieces of plastic and some other objects used in chemical laboratories, including a funnel, a glass flask, and droppers used to weigh chemicals.

Hannan told the reporters he had hired the house at Tk 3,500 a month.

A Rab official said though the eight members took part in the operation, a good number of plainclothes Rab men were deployed in Badda as a backup force.

Sources said as Hannan kept mum for the whole day and was denying allegations against him, the Rab officials called in Munshi Atiqur Rahman, assistant superintendent of police of Criminal Investigation Department (CID), to the Rab headquarters as he had investigated cases in which Hannan was accused and has specific information about him.

PROFILE
Mufti Hannan, prime accused in the plot to assassinate Sheikh Hasina, was reportedly trained in Peshawar in Pakistan, and sent to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet army. After the recovery of a diary of Hannan's brother, the Huji is believed to have links with Pakistan also.

After passing hifz from Gouhardanga madrasa in Pakistan, he slipped into India and studied at Deoband Madrasa for six years, Hannan told reporters at Rab office last night.

"I then moved to Afghanistan and received training to fight. Afgan leaders had given me a rifle to fight the former Soviet Union troops and I returned to the country with it," he added, but did not mention the year of his return.

Hannan claimed to the reporters after the Kotalipara bomb incident, his house was damaged and he left the Huji. He also claimed he had not maintained connection with any organisation since then.

"Cutting all relation with Hijbut Towheed, I moved to Dhaka then," he added.

The previous Awami League government had announced a bounty of Tk 5 lakh for his arrest.

There are four cases -- two each with Gopalganj and Kotalipara police stations -- against Hannan. The cases were filed in 2000.

He was convicted for life-term imprisonment in one of the cases filed with Gopalganj Police Station under the Arms Act.

The other case with Gopalganj Police Station was filed under the Explosive Substance Act and another case was filed against him under the same charge with Kotalipara Police Station. The fourth one is a sedition case.

Rab officials said he would be handed over to Badda police, who will file a remand petition for him. If the court grants the remand prayer, intelligence officials will further interrogate him.

GOVERNMENT SHELTER?
"After this government came to power, I appealed to the then home minister Altaf Hossain for mercy," Hannan, clad in a white T-shirt and check lungi, said as he was brought to reporters at Rab-1 office in Uttara.

"It is Moulana Mohiuddin (Madina editor) who mediated between me and the home minister and I submitted a petition through him to get my name erased from the attempt on Sheikh Hasina case."

Asked what the home minister had assured him, he said, "He assured me of staying in Dhaka and not to get frightened, and move freely until situation normalises."

"It was for his assurance that I did not think of fleeing the country," he added.

But before the home minister could do anything for his mercy, Altaf was made commerce minister, Hannan said, adding he was staying in Badda since then.