S M Mizanur Rahman :
The masterminds behind the deadly terror attacks in city’s Gulshan Café and near Sholakia Eidgah of Kishoreganj district have been identified, claims Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal on Saturday.
“The masterminds and instigators of the terror attacks in the city and Sholakia have been identified. Action will be taken against them as per the regular law,” he told journalists at his Secretariat office. He, however, said that the names of perpetrators of the terror attacks would not be disclosed right now for the sake of investigation. Replying to a query about whether the USA wanted to send soldiers to Bangladesh, Kamal said, “The USA didn’t make such proposal.”
“But the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal during her visit to Dhaka assured us that her country would always remain beside Bangladesh,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia claimed that significant progress has been made in the investigation into the deadly terror attack in city’s Gulshan Café.
“As significant progress has been made in the investigation, we have already launched a drive to net the masterminds, financers and the criminals involved in giving shelters to the terrors,” he told journalists at a press briefing at the DMP media centre in the city on Saturday.
He said they have also obtained information that who has given shelters to the terrors and had regular contacts with them.
“It is not possible for only five to six militants to carry out this atrocity on their own, they were recruited and trained, he said, adding that the all of the assailants were Bangladeshi citizens and they were recruited and trained here. When asked about the whereabouts of detained Hasnat Karim, a British citizen, and also former teacher of North South University and Tahmid Hasib Khan, a student at the University of Toronto, the DMP Commissioner said they are still in the stage of interrogation.”
“Ask our investigation officers to know about the whereabouts of Hasnat Karim and Tahmid Hasib Khan. They could say about them,” he said. An amateur video shot of the cafe during the siege brought Hasnat at the centre of speculation on social media with many asserting that he had link with the attackers. North South University had reportedly removed him over links with the extremist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Tahmid Hasib Khan, a student at the University of Toronto, is a permanent resident of Canada. Son of businessman Shahriar Khan, his family said he arrived in Dhaka the day before the attack and was in the upscale cafe to have Iftar with his friends. Meanwhile, according to intelligence sources, video footages collected from the Gulshan area during the attack will be sent to the laboratory of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a domestic intelligence and security service of the United States.
As the video footages collected from the city’s Gulshan area are illegible, the footage will be sent to the FBI lab to identify the persons. The FBI lab equipped with high technology will be able to detect the persons seen passing by United Hospital on the dreadful night, sources said. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch, a New York-based rights body on Saturday urged the Bangladeshi authorities to guarantee all the due process rights of two detainees — Hasanat Karim and Tahmid Khan — who had been held hostage by armed gunmen during siege on the Holey Artisan Bakery.
The two men were initially held for questioning by authorities but have neither been charged with nor released. All the hostages, except Karim, 47, and Khan, 22, were released on July 3.
Their families have had little or no official information about their safety and whereabouts since then. They have been allowed to send medicines and clothes, but are unsure if those were delivered to the detainees, said the rights body in a statement.
The detainees have not been produced promptly before a judge, a right enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Bangladesh is a party, it said.
“The attack on the café was a horrific event, and the authorities should conduct thorough investigations by questioning those held hostage – but they must do so in a rights-respecting manner,” said Brad Adams, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch.
“Karim and Khan have not had access to a lawyer, and the police continue to deny holding them although they are clearly still being held by the Detective Branch. The authorities need to either charge or release them immediately.”
“The authorities holding Karim and Khan are bound by Bangladeshi law and international law to ensure that both men are accorded their full due process rights, including the right to a lawyer and the right to be produced before a magistrate, both of which are key in ensuring their physical well-being and freedom from custodial abuse,” said Adams.
One of the suspects Mohammad Shaon, also the cook’s assistant of the café, held during the July 1 terrorist attack, died in police custody at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
