Attacks on Cops: Claims tweeted from Bangladesh

The tweets, which claimed the Islamic State carried out attacks on police in the capital in the last five months, were actually made from Bangladesh, the top counter-terror official said yesterday. 

“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 Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit, said at a press briefing at Dhaka Metropolitan Police Media Centre.

The SITE-Intelligence Group, which tracks online activities of jihadist organisations and white supremacists, said the IS claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Replying to a query, Monirul said, “The SITE-Intelligence Group never verifies any claim, and they have no mechanism for it.”

The Group monitors social media sites, and whenever it learns of any incident, it tries to find out from open sources whether the incident actually took place, he mentioned.

The CTTC unit on Monday arrested two suspected members of the “Neo-JMB” cell -- Farid Uddin Rumi and Mishuk Khan Mizan -- from the capital’s Jatrabari and Narayanganj.

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

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.

Monirul said all these IEDs were controlled by remotes, and the “Neo-JMB” cell used low-quality explosives for making those. After carrying out the attacks, they relayed the information to the cell’s “ameer” (head of the cell), who then tweeted about the incidents from Bangladesh, said the CTTC unit chief.

He further said the attackers didn’t receive any hands-on training on making bombs.

“They learnt to make bombs through manuals and trial and error method as all of them [the arrestees] are engineers by profession.”

“We have identified the ‘ameer’ of the cell and two other members by interrogating the arrestees. We hope to get more information about them from the arrestees during their remand,” said Monirul.

The cell members did a recce of different areas in the capital to see where they can plant IEDs. They also observed at what time policemen go inside the police box at a certain location.

They carried out attacks between 8:00pm and 10:00pm when policemen went inside police boxes, he said.

“They even made three powerful IEDs for carrying out attacks on police this month,” Monirul added.

Earlier on August 9, the CTTC unit had arrested five followers of “Neo-JMB” from the city’s Bashundhara area, and said they might have been involved in planting IEDs at Paltan and Khamarbari.

Asked whether those five have any links with the “Neo-JMB” cell, Monirul said they may have connections with the cell’s “ameer”.

“We are investigating it,” he added.

“Neo-JMB” does not believe in the law of the land, and this is the reason why it “ideologically” considers police as its enemy, said Monirul.

“They [militants] are also targeting police as many of their fellow members were killed in police drives,” he mentioned.

Meanwhile, Joynal Uddin, the father of Rumi who was arrested in an anti-militancy operation on Monday, said that only a week ago, he had visited his tin-shed house that police termed a “Neo-JMB” lab in Narayanganj’s Shiarchar area and saw nothing suspicious there.

Joynal and his family members live in his two-storey building near the tin-shed house, which was rented out.

“I visited the tin-shed house on September 15 but didn’t see anything that looked like explosives. My younger son Jalauddin Rafiq used to take care of the house.

“There were only furniture and a few other items of daily use there,” Joynal, a retired Bangladesh Bank official, told our Narayanganj correspondent.

Joynal and his wife Farida Begum were in their village home in Rajbari during the police drive on Monday. He came to Narayanganj yesterday morning after learning about his son’s arrest.

He demanded fair investigation into the incident.

Counterterrorism officials said Rumi had set up a “bomb-making lab” in three of the six rooms at the tin-shed house.

A case was filed with Fatullah police station last night against 13 people, including Rumi and his brother Rafiq, for keeping bomb-making materials, making bombs and involvement in militant activities.

Sub-inspector of the CTTC unit Mokhlesur Rahman filed the case, Aslam Hossain, officer-in-charge of the police station, told this newspaper.