Staff Reporter :
The Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) Unit of Police in a drive arrested Boro Mizan from a residence in the city’s Banani area on Tuesday night.
Mizan is the leader of a gang which supplied arms and explosives used in the terrorist attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan last July 1, 2016, said Mohammad Yousuf Ali, Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).
Mizan is the head of the new faction of banned militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (New JMB) in Chapainawabganj’s Shibganj upazila area and is also the front man for an outfit which supplied arms and explosives to New JMB, the police official said.
Meanwhile, the CTTC officials produced Mizan in the court on Wednesday and prayed for a 10-day remand. The court set March 5 for the remand hearing, until which Mizan will be in jail. He was shown arrest in case with Darus Salam Police Station filed on November 2 in 2016.
Mizan was the chief commander of militant group Purbo Jund Al Tawhid, and later joined the New JMB with the help of Gulshan attack mastermind Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, the DAC said.
“Mizan formed a group which supplied arms, grenades, detonators and explosives to the new militant group from Chapainawabganj,” he said.
During interrogation, he said another “Neo JMB” member, Chhoto Mizan alias Tara, delivered the raw materials and firearms, including pistols, to the key planners of the Gulshan café siege — Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury and Nurul Islam Marzan, the police official said.
The grenade and firearms used in the Holey Artisan attack was brought to Dhaka with the help of Mizan’s group and handed over to militant Tanvir Qadri alias Abdul Karim before the attack, according to police officials.
Tamim was killed in a drive at a militants’ den in Paikpara area of Narayanganj town on August 27, 2016, while Tanvir Qadri died a fortnight later in another anti-militant raid in the capital’s Azimpur.
JMB operatives, who became inactive after Saidur Rahman took over as the chief following Abdur Rahman’s execution in 2007, formed the new group, inspired by the ideology of Islamic State. Law enforcers call it “Neo JMB”.
