DHAKA, Dec 15: Bangladesh authorities had detained 12 Islamist militants over the last few days for campaigning against the Dec 29 parliamentary election, security officials said on Monday.

“CDs and leaflets urging people not to take part in the elections that (they said) will install an un-Islamic government were also seized,” Hasan Mahmud Khondakar, chief of the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) force, said.

The militants were from the outlawed Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen group and most were arrested in Nilphamari, 400km northwest of the capital Dhaka, security officials said.

Police have tightened security across the country as political parties step up election campaigning.

The Dec 29 vote will cap nearly two years of emergency rule by an interim authority, which took over in January 2007 and launched a crackdown on political corruption.

The Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen group sent anti-election CDs and leaflets to officials, party leaders and workers in northern Bangladesh early this month.

The group has been campaigning to turn mostly Muslim Bangladesh into an Islamic state based on sharia law.—Reuters