Police on Tuesday traced prime accused of New York bomb attack Akayed Ullah’s residence at Jhigatola under Hazaribagh police station in the capital Dhaka though the competent authorities refrained from making any comment officially.
Sources close to the police headquarters said a team of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit [CTTCU] picked up Akayed Ullah’s wife Zannatul Ferdous Jui, her father Zulfiqur Haider and mother Mahfuza Akter yesterday afternoon.
“We’re quizzing Akayed them to know the details of the suspect,” Deputy Commission of CTTCU Md Saiful Islam said.
According to the information available, Akayed Ullah’s wife lives at Jhigatola along with her six months old son. He got married Jui, a student of Dhaka City College, in January last year and blessed with a son in June this year. He came to Bangladesh on September 18 hearing the birth of his son and returned to the USA on October 22.
The landlord of Jhigatola house Rahima Islam told the newsmen that Akayed Ullah’s father in-law, works at a shop in Basundhara City Shopping Complex, had rented the house in 1997. Officer-in-Charge of Hazaribagh police station Mir Alimuzzaman, however, failed to provide any information about the detainees. “No, we’ve no idea about the residence of Akayed Ullah. There is no existence of his house in Hazaribagh area,” he said.
It became talk of the country when NY police on Monday detained Bangladeshi national Akayed Ullah in connection with the bomb attack. NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said Ullah “did make statements” about ISIS after the blast.
“He had a homemade bomb strapped to his body, which was exploded in an underground pedestrian corridor between New York’s Times Square and the Port Authority Bus Terminal at rush hour injuring him and three others, including a police officer,” the US media reported.
Against this backdrop, Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Haque has said, Akayed Ullah, 27, has no criminal record in Bangladesh. “He [Akayed Ullah] is from Chittagong and visited Bangladesh in September last,” the IGP said.
Sources said Akayed Ullah, hailed from Chittagong’s Sandwip, went to USA along with his parents in February 2011. A US immigrant Akayed Ullah started living in New York’s Brookline. A year after arriving, he obtained a license to drive a livery cab.
As per police records, he got into two car accidents while on the road, and his license lapsed in 2015. Later, he started working as an electrician, the US police suspected.
Blaming US migration policy, Press Secretary of Department of Homeland Security Tyler Houlton in a recent statement said, “The suspect is a lawful permanent resident from Bangladesh who benefited from extended family chain migration.”
Meanwhile, a tense situation has been prevailing among Bangladeshi community in New York following the arrest of Akayed Ullah while the Trump administration instantly blamed the migration policy for the bomb attack.
Reports received in Dhaka from New York City said that Bangladeshi nationals have imposed self restriction on their movement while most of them were staying inside their houses. Even who have legal documents and permits were also afraid of possible harassment.
US President Donald Trump, in a latest statement after the bomb attack, blamed the America’s lax immigration system.
“The terror suspect entered our country through extended family chain migration, which is incompatible with national security,” the statement read. “My Executive action to restrict the entry of certain nationals from eight countries, which the Supreme Court recently allowed to take effect, is just one step forward in securing our immigration system. Congress must end chain migration.”
Condemning the bomb attack at a New York bus terminal, Bangladesh government has reiterated its ‘zero tolerance’ policy against any sort of terrorist act.
The Bangladesh embassy in Washington DC in a statement on Monday said: “Government of Bangladesh is committed to its declared policy of ‘Zero Tolerance’ against terrorism, and condemns terrorism and violent extremism in all forms or manifestations anywhere in the world, including Monday morning’s incident in New York City.”
“A terrorist is a terrorist irrespective of his or her ethnicity or religion, and must be brought to justice,” it added.
In February 2013, a Bangladeshi youth Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 21, was detained for allegedly trying to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who had been constant surveillance of FBI agents.
