Hefazat leader Mamunul Haque held in Dhaka

Hefazat-e-Islam Joint Secretary General Mamunul Haque has been arrested at a madrasa in Dhaka.

Joint teams of police and detectives raided Jamia Rahmania Arabia Madrasa in Mohammadpur on Sunday and apprehended the Hefazat leader, who has been in the limelight due to some recent controversies.

Confirming the matter, Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Joint Commissioner (Detective Branch) Mahbub Alam said Mamunul, a teacher of the madrasa, was being taken to DB's Mintoo Road office.

DB officials said a huge number of law enforcers surrounded the madrasa around 12:30 pm. Teachers and students initially tried to obstruct them during the raid.

Later, Mamunul was detained from a room on the first floor of the institution, they said.

Mamunul is instigator of attack on a Hindu village and vandalism in Chattogram, Brahmanbaria and some other places of the country.

On April 3, people found and surrounded the Hefazat leader staying with a woman, who he claimed to be his second wife, at Royal Resort in Sonargaon.

Local administration and police officials went to the resort on hearing about the incident.

Police said at the time Mamunul was not being detained or arrested and that they were trying to find out what happened.

Later on, stick-wielding Hefazat supporters launched an attack on the resort. They vandalized it and snatched Mamunul from the police.

According to sources concerned, Mamunul had been staying at the madrasa since the resort incident and was under police scanner.

Meanwhile, the Hefazat leader has been sued in several cases filed over violence in Baitul Mukarram National Mosque in Dhaka and following his confinement with the woman at the Sonargaon resort.

DB officials said Mamunul is also an accused in a number of cases filed over the Hefazat mayhem in the capital on May 5, 2013.

He will be shown arrested in the old cases at first and later will be taken into remand for interrogation in other cases as well, they added.

Earlier, the Hefazat leader made the headlines by his controversial remarks regarding sculptures. He is also accused of threatening the government in the past.

In November last year, he demanded an immediate halt to the installation of a sculpture of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the capital's Dholaipar.