'Planner' of Ashulia bank heist held
Police yesterday claimed to have arrested the mastermind behind the gruesome Ashulia bank heist.
Producing Mahfuzul Islam Shamim alias Suman, an alleged operative of banned militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), before the media, police claimed he was the one to have planned and executed the Arpil 21 heist that left at least nine people dead.
Superintendent of Police Habibur Rahman of Dhaka said Shamim, arrested at a relative's residence at Madhya Badda in the city around 1:00am, leads a small ABT group and was earlier involved with another banned militant outfit -- Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
He had trained his group members before carrying out the robbery at the Ashulia's Kathgora branch of Bangladesh Commerce Bank.
Shamim was also involved in the prison van ambush in Mymensingh's Trishal in February last year, the SP claimed. JMB top leaders Salahuddin Ahmed alias Salehin, Zahidul Islam alias "Boma" Mizan and Rakib Hasan Russell -- all death row convicts -- were snatched away from police that day.
"Suman detached himself from the JMB following a leadership row with Salahuddin a few days after the Trishal ambush," Habibur told reporters at a briefing at the DMP media centre.
The arrestee, who hails from Jamalpur, managed to escape a police drive at a militant training camp in Bogra in August, 2013.
He also said Al-Amin Hossain, one of the total 11 arrestees in the heist case, had confessed that Shamim was involved in killing a Bkash agent at Boardbazar in Gazipur and mugging Tk 5 lakh from him on March 10.
The militants robbed the bank to collect fund for the organisation, SP Habibur said.
Shamim used a firearm during the robbery, but the police official said they were yet to recover it.
Asked whether these arrestees were found to have any link to the recent killings of secular bloggers, the SP replied in the negative.
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