How convicts got IS caps remains a mystery
The mystery over how death-row convicts in the Holey Artisan Café attack case got caps with the emblem of Islamic State remains unsolved even after nine days.
On November 27, at least two of the convicts were seen wearing the caps in a Dhaka court after the verdict in the case was delivered.
Two probe committees -- one by police and another by jail authorities -- were formed to investigate how the prisoners got the caps.
Yesterday, Joint Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Detective Branch Mahbub Alam, who leads a three-member probe committee of police, said they were yet to find the caps.
The investigators found a CCTV footage that shows that the convicts had caps in their pockets when they were leaving the prison for the court that day, he said.
He, however, could not confirm whether the caps had the IS emblems.
Mahbub made the statement to journalists after a press conference at the DMP Media Centre in Dhaka.
Responding to a question, he said different agencies interrogated Rakibul Islam alias Regan, who was in the dock and wore the cap there, but he gave puzzling replies.
“Regan told us that he threw it [cap with IS emblem] out of the prison van on their way back to jail from the court. But he could not say where … .” he added.
On Tuesday, Regan claimed before a Dhaka court that he got the cap with IS emblem from an unknown person on the court premises. Another death-row convict Jahangir Hossain alias Rajib Gandhi was also seen wearing a similar cap.
On the other hand, a report submitted by the jail authorities mentioned that the convicts had no scope for getting caps in the prison.
Regan, Rajib, and five other militants were handed death penalty for their involvement in the 2016 Gulshan café attack that left 22 people, including 17 foreigners, dead.
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