Sholakia attack: 2nd suspect is a local youth

The second suspect detained over the attack at Sholakia Eid congregation in Kishoreganj yesterday has been identified as a local youth, a police officer says. 

Jahidul Haque Tanim is the son of one Abdus Sattar of Paschim Tarapasha in Kishoreganj Sadar upazila, our correspondents report from the spot. 

Twenty-three-year old Tanim was a third year student of English department at a government college in Dhaka. He did not finish his study, said the police officer of the Kishoreganj Sadar Police Station, seeking anonymity. 

Asked about his son's involvement with militant activities, Tanim's father Abdus Sattar Chand Mia told The Daily that he had no knowledge of it. 

The law enforcers detained him from under a bed of a house in the area while they were hunting for the Sholakia attackers yesterday. 

"I went to carry out the attack as per instruction of our leader," the policeman quoted the arrestee as saying.

Two suspects – Abu Mukadil and Tanim – are now in law enforcers' custody. 

Apart from them, two to three persons are also in law enforcers' custody and are being interrogated in connection to the attack, the policeman said.

Alleged attacker Mukadil, 19, was undergoing treatment at Kishoreganj Sadar Hospital for bullet wounds. Later he was shifted to Mymensingh Medical College Hospital. Mukadil is a madrasa student from Dinajpur. The name of his madrasa is yet to be known. 

He is now in Rapid Action Battalion custody.

Four persons – two policemen, a woman and an alleged attacker – were killed during the Thursday morning incident.

The attack happened about an hour before the largest Eid congregation of the country was to take place.

It came when the country is reeling from the July 1 attack on a Gulshan café when militants killed 22 people -- 20 hostages, 17 of them foreigners, and two police officers.