Rajshahi Raid: Female arrestee knows several top militants

Police yesterday claimed Sumaiya, arrested during the Godagari raid, knew some top militants who were acquainted with her father Sazzad Ali and visited his house in the last two months.

One of them was a supplier of grenades to Gulshan café attackers, police said.

The arrestee also told police during interrogation that her father got involved with banned militant outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) when Shaykh Abdur Rahman was its chief. Sazzad also radicalised his family members.

Five suspected militants and a firefighter were killed during the police raid on Sazzad's newly built house in Benipur village of Godagari on Friday. The five are Sumaiya's parents Sazzad and Lutfunnesa Bely, brother Al Amin, sister Karima and madrasa student Ashraful.

The deceased firefighter is Abdul Matin.

Nisharul Arif, additional deputy inspector general (Rajshahi range) of police, said they showed Sumaiya 12 photographs of listed militants and she identified four of them, including Sohel Mahfuz, a former Majlis-e-Shura member of JMB.

Sohel of Kushtia later joined “Neo JMB” as an explosives expert. He was known as Hatkata Sohel for a cut mark in his left hand. He allegedly supplied grenades used in Gulshan café attack on July 1 last year, the official added.

Sohel was a distant relative of Nurul Islam Marzan, the suspected operational commander of the Gulshan café attack.

The additional DIG, however, refused to disclose the names of other militant suspects.

After the executions of some top JMB leaders, Sohel became a member of the JMB's Majlis-e-Shura, the highest policymaking body of the outfit, with Maulana Saidur Rahman as its chief.

Sumaiya told investigators that Sazzad became a member of JMB with the help of his cousin Monirul Islam, a close associate of terror kingpin Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai.

According to the arrestee, Sazzad became active in “Neo JMB” politics two years ago when Monirul was freed from jail.

On Friday, the five came out of Sazzad's house together. Ashraful and Al Amin wore suicide vests, additional DIG Arif said quoting Sumaiya.

Within seconds, Sazzad carrying a pointed rod ran towards firefighter Matin while his wife Bely with a sickle, daughter Karima with a knife and son Al Amin with a dagger followed Sazzad. Ashraful turned to the east targeting a police official.

A little later, Sumaiya along with her child came out and stood in a cropland. 

Hipjur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Godagari Police Station, quoted Sumaiya as saying that the militants had planned to kill at least one cop.

Meanwhile, the Quantum Foundation yesterday buried the five militants at Hetomkhan Graveyard in Rajshahi after police handed over the bodies to the organisation. Earlier, their relatives refused to receive those.

REVISED AUTOPSY REPORT

Enamul Haque, assistant lecturer at the forensic medicine department of Rajshahi Medical College, submitted a revised autopsy report to police yesterday.

According to the report, one of the five militant suspects died of bullet wounds, two of bullet and splinter injuries and two others of blast wounds.

In his previous report on Friday, the physician said all the five died of splinter injuries they received during the raid.