Members of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) have arrested a war criminal and death-row convict Abdul Majid from Madaripur around four years after he was awarded capital punishment in 2019.

The 80-year-old Majid is the son of Miraj Ali of Purba Moudam village under Purbadhala police station in Netrokona, said a press release signed by Farzana Hoque, senior assistant superintendent of police (media) of Rab, on Thursday.

The fugitive convict went into hiding in 2015 when a case involving the 1971 war crimes was filed against four people including him with the International Crimes Tribunal in 2014.

He faced charges of killing, mass killing, abduction, torture, torching, rape and looting in the case.

Majid, who was the head of Razakar Bahini in Purbadhala. As a membe of  the auxiliary force of the occupied Pakistani military, in collaboration with his cohort, he killed freedom fighter Abdul Khaleq and his associates at the house of Khaleq at Badha village under the Purbadhala police station on August 17, 1971.

Later, their bodies were dumped into several rivers.

Though initially four people were indicted in the case later three more people were also accused in the case.

Read more: 6 sentenced to death for war crimes in Mymensingh

The International Crimes Tribunal handed down the death sentence to all the seven accused after completing all legal procedures in 2019.   

With the 36th judgment in the case, two convicts died when the case was behind bars, two died as fugitives after the judgment was passed and the other two are still at large.