Staff Reporter :
Police have no information regarding Reuters’ claim that Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury sought and won approval from Islamic State (IS) for the attack on Holey Artisan Café in the city’s Gulshan on July 1, in which 20 people, most of them foreigners, were killed.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Asaduzzaman Miah said this to reporters during a programme at Police Headquarters in the capital on Saturday afternoon.
In the programme, Dutch-Bangla Bank Ltd (DBBL) donated Tk 2 crore for construction of a building for Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of police.
The DMP Chief said, “The Gulshan attack opened our eyes and later we managed to carry out successful operations in Kalyanpur, Narayanganj and some other places.”
Replying to a query on Thursday’s Reuters report on IS role in the worst Gulshan terror attack, he told journalists, “As there is no information on this, I don’t want to make any comment on it. Detectives will investigate into this matter.”
A Reuters’ report of November 30 claimed that Tamim was told by his contact in the militant group, Abu Terek Mohammad Tajuddin Kausar, to target the foreigners.
Before Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury coordinated Bangladesh’s worst militant attack, he sought and won approval for it from Islamic State, reports Reuters quoting a senior police official who has seen communications between the two men.
Tamim was shot dead with his two accomplices in a police raid in Narayanganj on August 27. Born on July 25, 1986 in Windsor in Canada, Tamim resided for a long time in Calgary and used to mix with people who had joined IS and gone to Syria.
Twenty hostages, including 17 foreigners, and two police officials were killed before an army-backed commando team killed the five in the attack.
