The two female suspects, who turned themselves in to the security forces in Narsingdi on Wednesday, were out on bail after their arrest on charge of terrorism a month after the Holey Artisan attack in Dhaka.
Their surrender brought the 41-hour standoff at the seven-storey building in the district’s Madhabdi municipality to an end without bloodshed.
Police’s Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit (CTTC) chief Monirul Islam named the two women as Khadiza Parvin Meghla and Israt Jahan Mou.
The two were among the four females arrested in August 2016 from Dhaka and Gazipur.
Counterterrorism police told the media on Wednesday that the two confirmed the identities of those killed during Tuesday’s SWAT operation at five-storey building at Bhaghirathpur.
The couple killed in the raid the previous day are Abdullah Al Bangali and Aklima Akter Moni, said top counterterrorism officer Monirul. “Bangali was the chief of Neo-JMB’s media wing.”
Neo-JMB is the revived faction of Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh, blamed for the 2016 Gulshan cafe terror attack.
Moni, Meghla and Mou were students of Manarat International University.
They were arrested along with another woman Istina Akter Oishee, a Dhaka Medical College graduate, on Aug 14 and 15 in 2016 during raids in Dhaka and Gazipur a month after the deadly attack on a Gulshan cafe on Jul 1.
They were formally arrested in an Anti-Terrorism Act case with the Mirpur police. Eight months later, Moni, Meghla and Mou were released on bail.
According to people familiar with the investigation, all four of them were part of the Neo-JMB’s female wing, headed by Moni, who was killed on Tuesday (Oct 16).
The anti-terror case named 10 other suspects based on information gleaned from the suspects in custody.
“But all of them were organisational names and we failed to trace them. However, a male and a female were arrested from Narsingdi later,” said investigating officer Additional SP Shamsul Islam before adding they pressed charges against six people in the case at the end.
All of them were gradually released on bail, according to people related with the probe. Meghla was granted bail on Mar 23 last yearm while nine days later on Apr 2, Moni and Mou.
People familiar with investigation said one Mahmudul Hasan radicalised Moni, who later went on to lead the terror outfit’s female cell.
Meghla and Mou, who surrendered to police on Wednesday, were part of that cell.
Additional SP Islam, who had interrogated the two in 2016, said they admitted to hold meeting with terrorists at their homes. “But none of them agreed to provide confessional statements in front of a judge.”
After clearing her HSC exams in 2012, Mou, the daughter of retired banker Habibur Rahman of Mirpur, got in to the Manarat University next year to study Pharmacy.
Meghla, who lived as a paying guest at the same Mirpur building where Mou’s family lives, also was studied Pharmacy at the same university.
Both of them were expelled from the university following their arrest in 2016.
Counterterrorism chief Monirul told the media on Wednesday that Mou and Meghla did not go back to their families after their release.
“According to intelligence input, the husband of one of them is a Neo-JMB bigwig,” he said.