4 killed in militant attack near Sholakia eid congregation
The government has asked law enforcement agencies to launch a thorough investigation into each individual case of runaway youths and find out their actual number, who have reportedly remained traceless and are suspected to have links with militant outfits.
The move came in the wake of the latest militant attack near the country’s biggest Eid congregation on Thursday morning that killed four people including two policemen just in a week after a terror attack at a Gulshan restaurant killed 22 people including 17 foreigners and two police officers.
Most of the attackers were from well-off families and reportedly traceless for several months.
‘We have asked the law enforcement agencies to conduct an in-depth investigation to find out the actual figure of the youths, who strayed from home and had no communication with their families,’ home minister Asaduzzaman Khan told New Age on Saturday.
Each individual case would be thoroughly investigated to ascertain whether they had developed any links with militant outfits as several attackers in both the incidents were reportedly ‘missing’ for months, he said.
At least three people were killed and 13 others,
including 12 policemen, injured as suspected militants attacked a police checkpoint at Sabujbagh, also near Sholakia Eid congregation in Kishoreganj district town, the largest in Bangladesh, on Thursday morning.
A gunman was also killed during the deadly gunfight that lasted for about an hour and a half starting about 9:00am, about an hour before the prayer started at the traditional Eid congregation.
The attack took place within a week of Gulshan carnage in the capital on July 1, where miscreants killed 20 hostages, mostly foreign nationals, inside a Spanish restaurant. Six suspected gunmen were killed during an army-led joint operation on July 2 morning.
Inspector general of police AKM Shahidul Hoque on Saturday, after visiting the spots, at a briefing at Sholakia Eidgah Maidan, claimed that both the attacks at Sholakia in Kishoreganj and at Gulshan in Dhaka were committed by banned Islamist militant outfit Jammatul Mujahedin Bangladesh.
He said that the militants had planned to kill hundreds of people by attacking the country’s largest Eid congregation but police foiled their plan through their check-post where two police members were killed and 12 others injured.
The dead were identified as Kishoreganj police lines’ special force constables – Jahirul Islam and Ansarul Huq, housewife Jharna Rani Bhoumik of Sabujbagh area in the district town and a suspected attacker Abir Rahman, son of Sirajul Islam of Debidwar in Comilla.
Abir was a student of North South University and his family now lives in Basundhara area in the capital, police said.
He remained traceless for the past four months since February, said police referring to a general diary lodged with capital’s Vatara police station by his father on July 6.
Six of the injured policemen who are now undergoing treatment at Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka are the Police Lines special force constables Rafiqul Islam, Matiur Rahman, Prashanta, Tushar and Tushar and assistant sub-inspector Md Nayan, police said.
The rest were given treatment at Kishoreganj General Hospital while another injured suspected attacker was now in law enforcers’ custody.
Kishoreganj Kotwali police station officer-in-charge Mir Mosharrof Hossain said they arrested two suspected attackers – Shafiul Islamalias Saiful Islam alias Mustakin, of village Dakkhin Devipur at Ghoraghat in Dinajpur and Jahidul Islam of Sholakia in Kishoreganj town — from the spot.
Police said Mustakin did not visit his house for long while Jahidul did not use to stay in his area.
The attackers headed to the checkpoint on the road adjacent to Azim Uddin High School ground where Farid Uddin Masud, who leads the Sholakia prayer, was scheduled to arrive by a helicopter at 9:30am. Due to the gun battle, his helicopter landed at the Kishoreganj stadium.
Masud, a leading Islamic scholar, published a Fatwa issued by one lakh muftis denouncing militancy.
Police and witnesses said that the attackers, when challenged, hurled a crude bomb on police personnel at the checkpoint, about 200 yards away from the congregation, where around 10 or 12 policemen were on duty, around 9:00am.
As the policemen fell on the ground an attacker began to hack the policemen with a machete while another rushed to a roadside urinal adjacent Mufti Mohammad Ali (Rah) Jame Mosque where he hacked another policeman who took shelter there, said Md Din Islam, the Khatib of the mosque, who witnessed the incident from the first floor of the mosque.
It took about 20 minutes when a huge number of policemen rushed in to bring the situation under control.
Another witness Manir Hossain of Sholakia said he saw two attackers run away carrying machete and pistols towards the east direction inside Sabujbagh and could hear the exchange of fire.
A number of locals said they, being panicked by hearing frequent gunshots, lied down on the floors of their houses to avoid being shot.
One of the attackers, later identified as Abir, had been opening fire and holding a machete in the air fell on the ground as he was shot by police, police and locals said.
Meanwhile, they said they could hear cry from the house of Jharna Rani Bhowmik as she received a bullet.
They said that police later arrested another attacker, who also received injuries.
Jaharna’s son Basudeb Bhoumik, who teaches accounting at Tejgaon Mohila College in Dhaka, said a bullet pierced through their windowpane, hit his mother’s head.
Jharna’s relatives said Jharna died after receiving a bullet fired by police as police had been firing shots towards the east while the attackers fired shots towards the west.
‘Jharna’s house was on the eastern side towards which police were firing,’ one of the relatives said.
Police sources said constable Zahirul, Jharna and attacker Abir died on the spot.
They said they rescued 13 injured policemen and took them to Kishoreganj Sadar Hospital from where seven including Ansarul were sent to Mymensingh Medical College Hospital where doctors declared Ansarul dead.
The remaining six were sent to CMH in Dhaka by a helicopter.
Pakundia police station officer-in-charge (investigation) Shamsuddin was also injured and given treatment at a local hospital.
The Kotwali OC said that they recovered two pistols, a machete, a magazine of pistol and a grenade from the spot.
Police sources said the number of attackers would be between five and eight but the IGP told reporters that they were yet to ascertain the number. ‘We are yet to arrest all the attackers.’
The Kishoreganj OC said that the attacker, who died on the spot, was carrying a pistol and machete. He was wearing a pajama but inside that there was jeans pant with a chamber to carry the machete.
He said that police recovered a pistol from the attacker arrested alive and handed him over to RAB for further interrogation.
The Eid congregation in Kishoreganj is known as the Sholakia Eid prayers and officials put the number of people at the service on Thursday between 2.5 and 3 lakh.
On Friday, members of Rapid Action Battalion–14 recovered two Chinese axes and a machete from a pond near Azim Uddin High School.
Rajib Kumar Dev, an assistant superintendent of police of RAB-14, said they recovered the weapons as per information from the detained attackers.
Meanwhile, a video, released by so-called Islamic State after the Gulshan restaurant siege, has shown three youths identified as Bangladeshis threatening with further attacks in Bangladesh.
Model Naila Nayem’s former husband ‘Tushar’ is identified as one of the three youths who appeared in the video, according to officials concerned.
Tushar married Nayem in 2011 but later they got separated. A dentist by profession, Tushar has been missing for around two years. His house is at Baridhara DOHS in Dhaka.
The youth appearing in the video with his face covered with Arabic-styled headdress has been identified as Tawsif Hossain, a former student of the Institute of Business Administration at Dhaka University.
Hossain had been reportedly arrested before on charges of his involvement with Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh.
The other youth in the video has been identified as Tahmid Rahman Shafi, one of the top 10 finalists of NTV’s reality music show Closeup 1 in 1995.
Shafi, who resigned from Grameenphone in 2011, is a son of the late election commissioner Shafiur Rahman, his former colleagues and classmates in Notre Dame College said.
Source: New Age
