Two suspects held during the anti-terror raid in Narayanganj were directly involved with the bomb attacks targeting police at Dhaka’s Gulistan, says a top Dhaka metro police (DMP) counter-terror officer.
DMP’s Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime chief Monirul Islam said this on Tuesday (Sept 24) while addressing a media call.
Farid Uddin Rumee, 27, his wife Jannatul Foara Anu, 22, and his brother Jamal Uddin, 25, were detained in a raid at a house in Narayanganj’s Fatulla, where huge cache of explosives and detonators were found.
“Farid and Mishuk have been formally arrested in a case filed over a recent blast in Gulistan, where three policemen were injured,” Islam said.
However, they have released Farid's wife Jannatul after questioning, as they did not find any evidence of her involvement with the blast.
Three policemen were injured in the blast in Dhaka’s Gulistan area on April 29. The improvised bomb went off that night, few hours after two people were killed in a blast a suspected militant den in Dhaka.
Police said Farid and Mishuk are suspected of having ties with New JMB – new faction of banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh.
The CTTC chief said: "These men are from a five-member group of New JMB. This group is supervised by the ameer, who planned all the mechanisms of the Gulistan attack."
Responding to a query regarding the ameer’s whereabouts, Monirul said: "We have intel that he is still in Bangladesh. Among the five, we have already arrested two, and identified the rest."
He said police will produce Farid and Mishuk before the court with a 10-day remand plea to question them.
Monirul Islam further said: "Judging by the pattern of their previous attacks, which were mostly carried out at night and at the end of the month, our intelligence unit surmised that they were planning to carry out an attack at the end of this month [September]."
CTTC recovered a number of bombs and bomb-making material from the militant dens on Monday. After the raid, Monirul told reporters that they found similarities between the explosives used in blasts in Dhaka with the ones recovered from Narayanganj dens.