Dhaka: Bangladesh on Wednesday night executed banned Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami chief Mufti Abdul Hannan and his two associates for a 2004 attack on a shrine that killed three people and wounded the British high commissioner at the time.
Hannan was hanged at Kashimpur Jail in Gazipur along with his accomplice Sharif Shahedul alias Bipul at 10:01 pm (local time), Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said.
His associate Delwar Hossain Ripon was executed in Sylhet jail, the minister added.
President Abdul Hamid had rejected their mercy petitions this week.
Earlier, the authorities beefed up security in and around the Kashimpur jail. The family members of Hannan - his wife, two daughters and elder brother - met him in the jail this morning.
Ripon's family members also met him at the Sylhet jail. On March 19, the Supreme Court reconfirmed an earlier verdict of itself endorsing death penalty of Hannan and the two others for the 2004 attack on the then UK envoy.
The HuJI operatives carried out the attack at the shrine of saint Hazrat Shahjalal in Sylhet, also the birthplace of Chowdhury, as he went to visit there 18 days into his new assignment in Dhaka.
A speedy trial tribunal originally tried the case and delivered its verdict on December 23, 2008, sentencing to death HuJI leaders Sharif Shahedul Alam and Delwar Hossain alongside Hannan.
HuJI was formed in 1992 by Bangladeshis who took part in the Afghan war against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
The US has designated HuJi as a foreign terrorist organization and "specially designated global terrorist" while Indian officials suspected the outfit's links in the Jaipur serial bombings and several other blasts there.
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