Militant Suspect Trisha: She called her parents during police raid

Parents of Trisha Moni had been waiting to hear from her for eight long months. They finally heard from her early Saturday, but they had no idea what trouble she was into.

Trisha, wife of “Neo JMB” leader Maynul Islam, was then in the middle of a police raid at their Ashkona hideout.

“At 3:30am [Saturday], I saw a missed call on my mobile phone,” said Trisha's father Abdus Samad. He thought the call came from a Bagmara hospital where his wife was admitted due to her illness.

He called back immediately. “Abba, can you recognise me ... I'm Trisha,” she told her father.

“I felt a chill down my spine as I talked to her. We've been looking for them [Trisha and her family] for so many months,” Samad told this correspondent.

Trisha told her father that police had cordoned off their house for their involvement with “Neo JMB” and asked him what she should do.

“I began shivering with fear when I heard about her links with militancy. I asked her to surrender before the police and tell them the truth,” said Samad, a fish trader, at his Saipara village home, around 40km from Rajshahi city.

He said Trisha was crying and suddenly hung up the phone. Hours later, she surrendered along with her four-month-old daughter.

Trisha again called him on Saturday evening and said she was in police custody. Two hours later, a police officer called him and asked him to go to Dhaka with clothes and food for Trisha's daughter, he said.

“I'm very upset to see my daughter in this crisis ... I'm involved with Awami League politics as I love my country,” he said with tears in his eyes.

Samad said he was concerned about his daughter, but not worried about the baby. “If the law permits her to start a new life, I will guide her.”

Maynul, who is codenamed as Musa, forced her to follow him, he alleged.

The last time Trisha visited her parents' house was in April. Maynul was also with her. They stayed for a few days there.

Trisha then told her parents that she would go abroad with her husband. She said Maynul would sell his land and with the money, she would apply for a passport. Her parents asked her to let them know before they start so that they could go to airport to see them off.

A week after they left the Saipara village home, Trisha told her mother over phone that their passports and visas were ready and that they were leaving the country in two hours.

“We'll not be available on phone for many days. Don't worry, we'll call you later,” Nazma quoted her daughter as saying.

She asked Trisha what they did with their household goods and she replied they sold those to a man at Tk 17,000.

“Since then, their phones were switched off and we had no contacts,” Nazma said. The distraught mother fell sick as she could not contact her daughter.

“I cannot sleep since she surrendered,” she said. She also claimed that Trisha was innocent. “Maynul compelled her to follow him.”

Trisha has a twin sister named Nisha Moni. She also has a brother named Nishan. She married Maynul in 2014 when she was an SSC examinee.

“We did not realise that they were getting involved in militancy. We started suspecting them after the Gulshan café attack,” said Nisha, an HSC student.

She claimed that Maynul had good relations with Maj Zahid, his wife and two children and they lived at the same building in the capital's Uttara.

After the Gulshan café attack, Nisha and her mother went to Dhaka looking for Trisha and her family.