DHAKA, Aug 24: Security forces in northern Bangladesh on Sunday mounted a house-to-house search for militants who had gone into hiding after a fierce gunbattle between police and religious extremists more than a week ago, local officials said.

The militants, on a police list of most wanted men, include Montazur Rahman, 35, and chief of the local Jamiatul Mujahideen militant group.

The group has been blamed for the Aug 15 clashes with security forces which left 13 people injured in the northern Joypurhat district.

Scores of policewomen joined their male colleagues in the hunt for at least 13 other militants who have been charged by a criminal court in Joypurhat district for a recent series of bomb attacks in the neighbouring regions.

The authorities deployed policewomen after local residents in the conservative Muslim country refused to allow male police to search the private quarters of female family members.

The anti-militant drive was geared up after the weekend discovery of a cache of home made grenades and chemical explosives from a family graveyard of the Jamiatul Mujahideen chief.

The bomb-making chemicals were found in plastic bags along with 55 home-made grenades buried in the private cemetery of the fugitive Rahman allegedly operating a local terror network.

“We have indications to believe that the militants are hiding with their arms in the neighbourhood of Joypurhat,” said district police superintendent Abdul Jalil Mondal.

At least 36 suspected militants have been arrested since the shootout between police and extremists in the remote Maheshpur village in Joypurhat district near the India-Bangladesh border.

The authorities said all the detainees are members of the banned Jamiatul Mujahideen.

Joypurhat, 390 kilometres north of Dhaka, with its adjoining districts is known to be a stronghold of Muslim militant groups including the Jamiatul Mujahideen which has been outlawed in Bangladesh for alleged extremism.

The shootout was sparked by a police action on a secret meeting of Muslim militants attended by over 100 activists from different parts of the densely populated Muslim majority country.—dpa