Published on 09:10 PM, September 29, 2019

‘’Neo-JMB cell’ member gives confessional statement

Firefighters are busy containing the spread of a fire after counterterrorism officials detonated a bomb at a “Neo-JMB” den in Narayanganj’s Fatullah on September 23, 2019. Photo: Sanad Saha

Farid Uddin Rumee, one of members of “Neo-JMB” cell, has confessed that he and four others were involved in carrying out attacks on police in capital Dhaka in the last five months.

He told a magistrate that they believe in Shariah based law and police are barriers for implementation of the law and that is why they carried out the attacks on the law enforcers.

“I was motivated by my brother Rafiqul Islam, a leader of Neo-JMB, for committing such offences” said Rumi, a teacher of Mechanical and Production Engineering in the capital’s Ahsanullah University, in his confessional statement.    

Metropolitan Magistrate Ashek Imam recorded his confessional statement at his chamber after Moklesur Rahman, a sub-inspector of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, and also investigation officer of the case, produced the accused.

After recording his statement, the magistrate ordered the IO to send him to jail.

The court also placed Mishuk Khan Mizan, a final-year engineering student of Narayanganj Polytechnic Institute, on a two-day fresh remand in the case.

Earlier on September 23, the duo was arrested from Dhaka’s Jatrabari area and Narayanganj district.

They were later shown arrested in a case filed over the Gulistan IED blast that left two traffic police constables and a community policeman injured on April 29.

On September 24, they were placed on a four-day remand each for interrogation over the incidents.

Two persons, including a female police officer, were injured after an IED went off near a police pickup near Malibagh intersection on May 26.

In another IED blast on August 31, two more policemen were injured at Science Lab intersection.

Besides, IEDs were recovered from the capital’s Paltan and Khamarbari areas on July 24.

“We think the Islamic State was not behind those incidents. Five members of a Neo-JMB cell planned the attacks on police and made the Improvised Explosive Devices [IEDs] used in the attacks,” Monirul Islam, chief of the CTTC unit, said at a press briefing at Dhaka Metropolitan Police Media Centre on September 24.