Bangladesh arrests lawmaker over child's shooting

DHAKA — Bangladesh police said Thursday they have arrested a ruling party lawmaker suspected of firing shots that seriously injured a nine-year-old boy. Police arrested Manjurul Islam Liton from a relative's apartment in Dhaka on Wednesday night after the boy's father filed a case against him, superintendent of police Ashraful Islam told AFP. "He was accused of firing the shots at the boy. He'll be taken to a court later today," Islam said of the 45-year-old MP. The government and the police had been criticized for failing to arrest Liton, a member of the ruling Awami League party, after the shooting two weeks ago. Local media said the boy was out walking with his uncle when the MP drove past and called the man over. Liton apparently became angry when the uncle did not respond, and pulled out his gun and fired it, missing the uncle and hitting the child, who is in hospital in a stable condition. The incident sparked protests in Liton's constituency in the northern district of Gaibandha, and in the capital, Dhaka. It was the latest in a series of similar incidents that have angered ordinary Bangladeshis. In June police arrested the son of a ruling party lawmaker after he shot and killed two people, in apparent anger over being stuck in a traffic jam. This week the teenage nephew of a former ruling party lawmaker reportedly injured four people in a drunk-driving incident. The Daily Star said police had yet to take any action against the 16-year-old boy, who did not have a driving license. Bangladesh arrests Dutch 'leader' of Myanmar separatists In another development, Bangladesh security forces said Thursday they have arrested a Dutch national suspected of leading a group of Myanmar separatists that attacked Bangladeshi border forces in August. Rannin Soe is an alleged leader of the Arakan Army, which has been fighting for an independent homeland in Myanmar's Rakhine state. Bangladesh launched a huge manhunt for the 47-year-old after the attack on its border forces in the Chittagong Hills in the south-east of the country, near Myanmar. "Soe is a Myanmar-origin Dutch national and a leader of the Arakan Army," local police chief Ohidullah Sarker told AFP. "He had been on the run since the attack on a patrol team of Border Guard of Bangladesh." Police arrested him on Wednesday after they found his Dutch passport, identity card and fatigues of the Arakan Army at a hideout. "He has told us that he is a doctor who studied in Yangon," Sarker said, adding that Soe had been in Bangladesh since 2010. In August a group of Arakan Army rebels ambushed a border guard patrol team near the border with Myanmar in what is thought to have been a revenge attack after Bangladeshi security forces seized 10 horses from them. Two cases were filed against Soe after the incident — one under Bangladesh's anti-terrorism laws and another for illegal trespassing. Following the attack, Bangladesh's army and police raided and sealed a luxury villa said to be owned by Soe in the Chittagong Hills and retrieved battle fatigues. Soe's assistant was also arrested in the raid. Myanmar's troubled Rakhine state suffered deadly religious violence in 2012 between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Muslims, mainly from the Rohingya minority. — AFP