Staff Reporter :
A charge sheet has been sent to court against eight suspects believed to have been involved in the militant attack on Gulshan’s Holey Artisan Bakery, which led to the deaths of 20 hostages, mostly foreigners.
Police Inspector and the case’s Investigation Officer (IO) Md Humayun Kabir on Monday submitted the charge sheet in the court of Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Nurunnahar Yesmin, and Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime, Intelligence and Prosecution) Mohammad Anisur Rahman and concerned official to the Home Ministry.
Among the eight suspects, six are now in jail and the other two are absconding. The inmates are Neo-Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (Neo-JMB) operatives Rakibul Islam Regan, Hadisur Rahman Sagor,
Jahangir Alam alias Rajib Gandhi, Aslam Hossain Rashed alias Rash, Abdus Sabur Khan alias Sohel Mahfuj, Mizanur Rahman alias Baro Mizan.
The fugitives men are Mamunur Rashid alias Ripon and Shariful Islam Khaled, a former student of the English Department at Rajshahi University, said Monirul Islam, Chief of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit, told the reporters at the DMP Headquarters on Monday.
The investigators also identified 21 people behind the attack. Of them, 13 people were killed in gunfights at different times, said the CTTC chief. The charges brought against them are based on 75 pieces of evidence and 211 witnesses to the incident of the carnage. Seventeen of the survivors have issued witness testimonies.
The North South University (NSU) former teacher Professor Hasnat Karim, who was one of the hostages and later detained, has been relieved from the charges sheet as “investigation could not find him linked with the militant activity”, he said.
Artisan’s pizza chef Saiful Islam Chowkidar and its employee Zakir Hossain Shaon – have not been named in the charge sheet.
The IO also appealed to the court to drop charges against Hasnat Karim, now in jail, as investigators did not find evidence of his involvement with the incident.
Warrants have been requested for the arrests of the two fugitives, Shahidul Islam Khaled and Mamunur Rashid Ripon, the CTTC chief said. The court will decide whether he will be included in the charge sheet or not, according to him.
In the investigation, it has been found that the criminals planned it six months ahead of launching the attack. Their target was to make the country unstable, said Monirul Islam.
“The attackers had two goals. The first was to destabilize Bangladesh and the second one was to attract the attention of international terrorist groups,” he said.
In addition to planning and coordinating the attack, some of the suspects trained the attackers and supplied arms and money, he added. In a query, he said the investigators could not find the involvement of the foreign radical groups or Islamic State (IS) men or foreign militants as the attackers brunt the electronic devices before the operation drive.
