Police is set to produce two men, who went missing in 2016, in court on Wednesday (May 21), when the investigators’ plea seeking remand for the terror suspects will be heard.
The two men are, Yasin Mohammed Abdus Samad, a British national of Bangladeshi origin, and Tehzeeb Karim, whose brother Rajib Karim was jailed for 30 years in the UK in 2011 for plotting to blow up a British Airways plane.
On Friday (May 17), Yasina and Tehzeeb was produced before a court by Dhaka metro police’s Detective Branch. Court documents show, they were arrested from the capital’s Banani earlier in the day.
Investigators declined to comment while Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court’s general record officer, Sub-Inspector Rakibul Hasan confirmed that the detective branch has pleaded 10 days custody each for the suspects.
According to court sources, the investigating officer told the court on Friday that Yasin and Tehzeeb were involved in the founding Jama'atul Muslemin, an al-Qaeda-based militant organization in Bangladesh.
Court sources also said Yasin had close contact with Rizwan Harun, who was arrested on Jan 20 for his direct involvement with the militant outfit Jamat-ul Muslimeen. He is also former owner of the controversial Lakehead Grammar School.
They used to work under the umbrella of the NGO, Research Centre for Unity Development (RCUD).
“Tehzeeb is an active member of Jama'atul Muslemin (JM). He went to Yemen to meet Anwar al-Awlaki, a key figure in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in 2010 and he was imprisoned there for 10 months,” an official familiar with the investigation said.
Tehzeeb’s brother Razib, who is serving jail in the UK for plotting terror, was a follower of the Yemen-based radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, British investigators had said.
It took months for the UK police to break encrypted messages on the computer of Razib, who was a software engineer at the British Airways.
Investigators found he had been in direct contact with Awlaki, who is accused of having links to the attempted bombing of a plane over Detroit during Christmas in 2009 and an attempt last year to explode ink printer bombs on freight planes heading to the US, reports the Guardian.
Yasin’s family alleged that he was picked up by unidentified men in front of Banani railway station on Jul 14, 2016, two weeks after the attack on Gulshan’s Holey Artisan Bakery.
His mother made a general diary in the Banani Police Station. His family alleged a man came to them identifying himself as law enforcer and took Tk 5 million in exchange for saving him from “crossfire”. RAB later arrested a person named Haji Alam in connection to the extortion.
Tehzeeb went missing on May 17, 2016 from the Dhaka airport after returning from Bangkok.