Staff Reporter :
Law enforcers arrested six suspected militants of banned outfit ‘Neo-JMB’, including a planner of the deadly café attack in the city’s Gulshan last year.
They were from Shibganj upazila of Chapainawabganj and Dhaka early Saturday.
The arrestees are Shohel Mahfuz, planner and bombs and explosives supplier to the café attackers, Jamal, Hafiz and Jewel.
Two other persons Md Alamin and Ahsan Habib were arrested from Savar and Dhamrai of Dhaka district, Police said.
Abdul Mannan, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit, who led the drive team, said “Mahfuz along with three other “Neo JMB” members-Jamal, Hafiz and Jewel-were arrested from a house in Kanshat area around 3:30am.”
Shohel Mahfuz has been taken to the capital for interrogation on Gulsha café attack incident, Mannan said.
Police produced the three suspected militants of “Neo JMB” before journalists during a press briefing in Chapainawabganj on Saturday, he said.
He carries the nickname ‘Hatkata’ (hand-less) because he lost his left hand to an explosion while manufacturing bombs, the detective official said.
“Shohel Mahfuz is one of the five most wanted ‘militants’ in the Holey Artisan Bakery militant attack case, Monirul Islam, chief of the CTTC unit, told reporters on Saturday.
Four other wanted people are Mizanur Rahman alias Chhoto Mizan, Hadisur Rahman Sagar alias Joypurhat Sagar, Basharuzzan Chocolate and Rashed Alias Rash.
“CTTC identifies Mahfuz as the leading explosives expert of Neo-JMB. He has been organising the terrorist group in Rajshahi in recent times. One of the founding members of the old JMB, Mahfuz has eluded arrest for almost two decades. Police believe he was the mastermind behind the snatching of three militants from a prison van in Mymensingh in 2014,” the CTTC chief said.
Calling him the military chief of Neo-JMB, the regional news outlet South Asian Monitor reported that Bangladeshi law enforcement agencies had informed Indian officials that they had detained Mahfuz on Thursday night.
In response to a query, the CTTC unit chief Monirul Islam described the report as baseless.
Mahfuz was wanted in the Indian state of West Bengal on charges of terrorism and illegal manufacture and procurement of weapons and explosives in the famous Khagragarh case. There he is known as Nasirullah. Indian authorities have a bounty of Tk10 lakh on his head, said a media report quoting an official of National Investigation Agency (NIA) in New Delhi headquarters.
Meanwhile, a team of CTTC unit arrested Alamin and Ahsan Habib, while conducting a drive in Savar and Dhamrai of Dhaka.
The arrestees were involved in supplying firearms found at the militant dens in Savar’s Genda area busted on 27 May, our correspondent reported quoting CTTC Assistant Commissioner SK Imran Hossain.
Earlier on the night of July 1, 2016, five armed militants stormed into Holet Artisan Bakery in the Gulshan diplomatic zone and held diners hostage at gunpoint. They then brutally murdered nine Italians, seven Japanese, one Indian and three Bangladeshis.
Two police officers also lost their lives as law enforcers in groups tried to close in on the place. The siege ended through a commando operation in which five militants and a chef died. Another staffer died of his injuries in hospital.
