DHAKA, Aug 17: Fifteen more suspected militants have been arrested in northern Bangladesh, raising the total number of people held at the weekend to 34 as paramilitary troops and police launched a campaign to flush out religious extremists from their strongholds.

Law enforcement officials said on Sunday that all the detainees were members of the militant Jamiatul Mujahideen group banned by authorities for its extremist policies.

The arrests followed a fierce gun battle between police and the militants in the northern Joypurhat district early on Friday in which at least 13 people were wounded, including four policemen. Earlier, 19 members of the Jamiatul Mujahideen were arrested after a shootout in a remote village in Joypurhat district close to the India-Bangladesh border.

The paramilitary border guards, Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), alerted all frontier checkposts in the area to stop the militants from fleeing across the porous border to neighbouring India.

“We have alerted the border forces against escape attempts by militants as they are being hunted down,” BDR commander Colonel Zohaerul Islam said.

The government also called out additional police forces to raid possible hideouts of the militants in the area.

Joypurhat, located about 390 kilometres north Dhaka, is known to be a stronghold of Muslim militant groups, including the Jamiatul Mujahideen which has been outlawed in Bangladesh.

Security forces were deployed in the Maheshpur village after Friday’s exchange of fire between the police and the militants. The fleeing militants snatched three guns from police before running away.

Local officials said the incident occurred as police swooped in on a secret meeting of militants attended by more than 100 activists from different parts of the country. The police said Friday’s raid on the meeting had unearthed a secret hideout of the religious extremists.

Local sources said the police had discovered a clandestine training camp for militants where unlicensed firearms and publicity materials were found. The discoveries could not be officially confirmed.

Meanwhile, a local district court remanded 20 arrested militants to police custody for five days for intensive interrogation. The remaining 14 detainees are to be brought to court on a remand request for purposes of questioning.

The more prominent Muslim group Harkatul Jehad has been blamed for last December’s bombing of three cinema houses in Bangladesh that killed 17 people.—dpa