One of the five the Islamic State reportedly claimed to be the gunmen who launched Friday’s terror attack in Dhaka has been identified by an Awami League leader as Rohan Ibne Imtiaz, the son of another leader of the ruling party’s city unit.
Rohan has been recognised as the son of SM Imtiaz Khan Babul, a leader of the party’s Dhaka City chapter and Bangladesh Olympic Association’s deputy secretary general.
Babul lodged a police complaint on Jan 4 this year stating that his son had been missing. A copy of the general diary (GD) filed with Mohammadpur Police Station in the capital is available with bdnews24.com.
“We have identified him (Rohan) as Imtiaz Babul’s son after going through the pictures that came up in the media and on Facebook,” Mukul Chowdhury, a vice-president of the recently defunct Awami League’s Dhaka City unit committee, told bdnews24.com.
Babul was the youth and sports secretary of the same committee Chowdhury had served.
Former schoolmates of Rohan, who studied at Dhaka’s Scholastica school, uploaded this photo combo on Facebook.
Rohan Imtiaz completed his A-levels from Scholastica, known as a school for the children of the well-to-do in Dhaka. His mother is a teacher at the school.Former classmates have uploaded a photo combo in the social media of Rohan with his parents and the photo, monitoring group SITE Intelligence published on Twitter, reportedly released by the Islamic State (IS), as one of the Dhaka cafe attackers.
The hostage crisis at the cafe at Dhaka’s upscale Gulshan neighbourhood ended in bloodbath after army commandos raided and freed 13 hostages.
The army said that six attackers had been killed in the countertsrike and that 20 hostages, mostly foreigners, were found slaughtered inside the restaurant.
Police later released the pictures of five bodies, who they said were the hostage-takers who had been killed in the army assault.
But Rohan was not among them, said relatives. His name also did not come up with the pictures posted by SITE or police.
SITE identified the five attackers as Abu Umayer, Abu Salam, Abu Rahiq, Abu Muslim, and Abu Muharib.
And, the names provided by police are ‘Akash’, ‘Bikash,’ ‘Don,’ ‘Badhon’ and ‘Ripon.’
Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Hoque told the media on Sunday the five attackers were members of militant outfit Jamaa’tul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
He claimed that they had been looking for them for quite some time.
Police, however, are yet to confirm either the claims made by IS or the photos reportedly released by the Middle East-based terror group.
They have been doubting claims made by IS in previous instances.
Awami League leader Mukul Chowdhury told bdnews24.com on Sunday that he had failed to contact with Imtiaz Babul since Rohan’s photos started emerging in the media.
To verify the identity, bdnews24.com contacted seven other leaders of the ruling party, but not one of them agreed to comment.
Police released the pictures of five bodies, who they said were the hostage-takers who had been killed in the army assault.
According to the police complaint filed by Rohan’s father, the 20-year-old was a business student at BRAC University.It says that Babul went to India on Dec 25 last year to get his wife treated and on Dec 30, he was informed from Dhaka that Rohan had not come back home.
Babul returned on Jan 1, 2016 and checked with relatives and Rohan’s friends for his son’s whereabouts.
Three days later, on Jan 4, he filed a missing report with police.
No-one at Imtiaz Babul’s home responded to bdnews24.com’s request for comment.
A relative of Babul, however, said that he had accompanied the Awami League leader several times when he went to the offices of home minister, inspector general of police and the RAB headquarters to trace his son.
“We were told by the RAB headquarters that according to their information, Rohan had left the country,” he told bdnews24.com.
The relative, asking not to be named, said that a few days before going missing, Rohan had started praying regularly and frequented the local mosque.
Source: bdnews24