Bangladesh says group named in India attack marginalized

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh said on Friday that militant group Harakat-ul-Jihad al Islami (HuJI), which Indian police suspect could be involved in bombings this week in a tourist city, had been marginalized following a crackdown.

Top government officials in Dhaka also urged the Indian media not to jump to conclusions and point the finger at "foreign forces" for the multiple explosions in the western city of Jaipur that killed 61 people on Tuesday.

"Bangladesh banned the HuJI group years ago after it was banned in the United States and other countries as a top militant organization," said Hasan Mahmood Khandaker, director general of the Rapid Action Battalion.

"Dozens of HuJI activists in Bangladesh including their chief Mufti Abdul Hannan have been detained over the years. While we don't rule out the existence of HuJI in Bangladesh we can say their activity has been drastically controlled by the security agencies here," he told Reuters over telephone.

Indian police said the attack in Jaipur bore some hallmarks of HuJI, and released a sketch of a man in his mid-20s seen near the scene of one bombing speaking Bengali, the main language of Bangladesh

An email to local media, from a group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen, declared open war on India and threatened more attacks on tourists.

India has suffered a wave of bombings in recent years and has blamed militant groups in Pakistan for most of the violence. But there have also been calls on Dhaka to curb the activities of Islamist groups operating there.

But Dhaka has bristled at suggestions that it harbored militants, arguing it itself had suffered violence.

Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, foreign affairs adviser (minister) to Bangladesh's army-backed interim government, said "no one should point finger at Bangladesh automatically for any suspected HuJI attack in other countries."