Ansarullah behind attacks, DMP suspects

Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Joint Commissioner Monirul Islam suspected that banned Islamist outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team is responsible for yesterday’s attacks on two publishers.

Ansar-al-Islam, a militant group suspected to be under the Ansarullah Bangla Team umbrella, claimed the responsibility for the attacks, said Monirul in a press briefing at the headquarters of Detective Branch of police at Dhaka’s Minto Road.  

He said the detectives are helping the Shahbagh and Mohammadpur police stations in carrying out the investigations.

“This is not a typical crime as it is a preplanned targeted killing. So it is difficult to capture the killers,” said Monirul.

When asked if such targeted plans can be prevented, he said, “Visible policing is not enough to prevent such incidents. We need a special counter terrorism unit which we don’t have. So we are trying our best with the available DMP resource and equipment at our disposal.”

In primary investigation, it is evident that the attackers are not trained killers but it can be concluded that they were trained by the same person, said the joint commissioner to the media.

“We cannot say for sure if this attack on the publishers is related to the previous attacks on bloggers without further investigation,” he said.

Law enforcers are giving their best efforts to capture the attackers and prevent such incidents from reoccurring, he said and urged those who received threats to come forth and seek police help.

“We are conducting threat analysis to prevent such attacks in the future,” he added.

Unknown assailants hacked to death Faisal Arefin Dipan of Jagriti Prokashani at Aziz supermarket in Shahbagh and critically injured Shuddhoswar's Ahmedur Rashid Tutul and two bloggers Ranadipam Basu and Tareque Rahim in the capital’s Lalmatia area yesterday.