Jamaat link found
Jamaat-e-Islami's link has been found in the Sholakia attack, says Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan.
He made the comment while talking to The Daily Star over phone on Friday.
The minister, however, refused to make further comments on the issue, saying they could come up with details on completion of investigation.
On Friday night, the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) arrested a man at Gobindagnaj upazila in Gaibandha on charges of renting out his house to one of the suspected Sholakia attackers.
The arrestee, Anowar Hossain, 48, was the headmaster of Ebtedia section of Khalshi Dakhil madrasha in the upazila.
He told the Rab that he had no political affiliation but some locals said he was a Jamaat supporter, reports our Gaibandha correspondent.
Anowar was arrested on the basis of information gleaned from arrested Shafiul, one of the suspected Sholakia attackers.
Shafiul told the Rab that he had been staying at Anowar's house since March paying a monthly rent of Tk 1,000, said Kayser Alam, a commander of Rab-13.
A woman and a “big brother” also used to stay with Shafiul, but Anowar could not say anything about the duo, said officials from the elite force, adding that they were looking for them.
“Shafiul did not pay his last month's rent and left the house a month before the Sholakia attack, saying he would return soon,” said Kayser.
The arrest came days after the arrests of two flat owners in the capita's Paschim Shewrapara and Bashundhara Residential areas.
They allegedly rented out their flats to the suspected Gulshan café attackers and withheld details of their tenants from police.
Mohammad Atiq, commanding officer of Rab-13, told The Daily Star that Shafiul had also participated in several “killing missions” in the northern part of the country while staying at Anowar's house.
Shafiul, son of Abdul Hye who is a radio and TV mechanic at Dakshhin Debipur village under Ghoraghat upazila in Dinajpur, left home some two years ago.
He was involved in at least two other targeted killings in Kurigram and Panchagarh, police had said earlier.
According to Ghoraghat police, Hye is an “active Jamaat activist”. Police filed an arson case against him in January, 2014.
Rab officials said they would have Shafiul and Anowar face to face for the verification of information gleaned from them.
On July 7, two police constables were killed while a dozen others, including six policemen, were injured as seven to eight armed youths battled with law enforcers for more than an hour near the Sholakia Eid congregation in Kishoreganj.
A woman and a suspected attacker also died during the fight which ensued when the attackers tried to cross a police checkpoint near a school in an attempt to reach the Eidgah.
At least 74 leaders and activists of Jamaat and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir were nabbed by law enforcers this month for carrying out different criminal offences.
Also, three activists and leaders of Shibir have been killed in so-called “gunfights” with law enforcers in Jhenidah recently.
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