Photo reportedly released by the Islamic State shows the Dhaka cafe attackers holding AK-22 semiautomatic rifle.
India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) says it is working on leads that suggest Pakistani gunsmiths helped produce the semiautomatic AK-22 rifles used in the Jul 1 Gulshan cafe attack in a clandestine factory in West Bengal.
NIA officials told bdnews24.com that one of the six Jamaa’tul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) operatives arrested in West Bengal in September has told them during interrogations that Pakistani gunsmiths visited the district of Malda to train the local gunsmiths, who produced the AK-22 rifles.
They did not say which of the six made that confession but clarified that he was involved in sending the arms across the border.
“He (the arrested JMB man) says that the gunsmiths who produced the rifles were from Munger in Bihar who had set up a clandestine mobile production base in Malda. But they were trained for a while by some men from Pakistan who spoke a completely different language not understood here,” said an NIA official on condition of anonymity.
The official said they suspected that the gunsmiths, from across the border, spoke in Pasthu and were probably from Darra Adam Khel in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province.
Darra Adam Khel is famous across the world for gunsmiths who can copy any small arms within a very short time. These copycat weapons are sold openly in the markets of Darra Adam Khel, that have found a place in the Hollywood ‘Rambo’ movies.
“It is not possible for these gunsmiths to turn up in India without Pakistani intelligence support,” an Intelligence Bureau (IB) official said.
Munger in Bihar is famous for producing local weapons called ‘katha’ or country-made pistols, but if they produced Ak-22 rifles, they may have needed expertise from Darra Adam Khel, said the IB official asking not to be named.
Bangladesh Police’s counter-terrorism unit chief Monirul Islam has already said that the rifles used in the Gulshan cafe attack were smuggled in from India.
The JMB terrorist has told NIA that the AK-22 rifles manufactured in Malda were smuggled into Bangladesh through the northern district of Chapainawabganj, thus supporting Islam’s claims.
In the terror attack on Holey Artisan Bakery and O’ Kitchen restaurant in Dhaka’s diplomatic zone Gulshan, two police officials were killed when the militants hurled grenades at them. Security forces stormed the cafe later and killed six suspected attackers, freeing 13 hostages in the process.
The bodies of 20 hostages, including 17 foreigners, were found in the cafe during the raid.
The army and police said the militants used an AK-22 rifle, four 9mm pistols, hand-made grenades or improvised explosive devices and sharp weapons like knives and machetes during the massacre.
Both the Bihar police and their counterparts in West Bengal are trying to track down the clandestine gun factory and those behind them after the NIA shared their findings with them.
Six JMB terrorists were arrested from Assam and West Bengal in September.
They include Faruq, who the Bangladesh authorities said to be responsible for the 2014 snatch raid in Mymensingh’s Trishal, in which three top JMB leaders were freed from police.
Two of them, Salahuddin Salehin alias Sunny and Jahidul Islam alias Boma Mizan are still said to be hiding in India.
The AK-22 is a less complicated user-friendly weapon, first manufactured in Romania, but is not as popular with non-state actors as AK-47.
Source: Bd news24
