Six suspected militants sentenced to death for Bangladesh robbery

Dhaka: A Bangladesh court on Tuesday sentenced to death six suspected Islamist militants for a deadly bank robbery last year, as authorities crack down on local hardliners following a wave of killings.

Dhaka judge S.M. Quddus Zaman convicted and sentenced the men over the robbery, which raised fears at the time of local groups raising funds to finance extremist activities.

"The judge sentenced six people to death and handed a life term to another person for the bank robbery," prosecutor Khandakar Abdul Mannan said, adding that one of those sentenced was still on the run.

Two others were given three years in jail while another two were acquitted, Mannan told AFP.

A bank manager and seven others were killed when the group stormed a Bangladesh Commerce Bank branch outside Dhaka in April 2015, exploding bombs to create panic and then stabbing and shooting customers and others.

A mob caught three of the robbers as they tried to flee with 687,000 taka ($8,750) in cash, beating one of them to death.

"They are members of a local Islamist militant group," police inspector Dipok Chandra Saha, who led the probe into the case, told AFP.

Several admitted under police questioning that they were former members of outlawed militant group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Saha said.

The case was fast-tracked as part of the government's ongoing crackdown against suspected militants, as Bangladesh reels from rising Islamist violence.

Police have blamed the JMB and another local outfit, the Ansarullah Bangla Team, for a spate of killings of religious minorities, foreigners and secular and liberal activists in recent months.

Police have rejected claims of responsibility from the Islamic State group and a branch of Al-Qaeda, and say homegrown Islamists have killed around 40 people in the last three years.