DHAKA – Police today submitted the charge sheet against eight ‘militants’ in connection with the case of extremist attack on Gulshan’s Holey Artisan Bakery in the capital on July 1 in 2016 in which 20 people, mostly foreigners, were killed.
The charge sheet in the case was placed before the Court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM), Dhaka, said Md Monirul Islam, Chief of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit.
Police in their two-year long investigation found involvement of 21 operatives of the Neo-Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) in the attack.
But, they accused eight of the militants as names of 13 others were dropped as they had been killed in different anti-militant assaults of the law enforcers. Five of the 13 militants were killed in the joint operation “Thunderbolt” led by military in the Holey Artisan Cafe.
Six of the eight charge-sheeted are now in jail while two are at large. However, former teacher of North South University Hasnat Karim was dropped from the charge sheet as his involvement in the attack was not found.
Police placed 75 evidences relating to the attack before the court. In their way to prepare the charge sheet, police considered statements of 211 people including survivors of the attack, law enforcers and the officers who were conducting forensic examination.
The eight chargesheeted are: Neo-Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh operatives Rakibul Islam Regan, Hadisur Rahman Sagor, Jahangir Hossain Rajeeb alias Rajeeb Gandhi, Aslam Hossain Rashed alias Rash, Abdus Sabur Khan alias Sohel Mahfuj, Mizanur Rahman alias Baro Mizan, and Mamunur Rashid alias Ripon and Shariful Islam Khaled, a former student of the English department at Rajshahi University.
Of them, the first six, who gave confessional statements under section 164, are now in jail while the two others are on the run. Chief of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit, Md Monirul Islam, informed the media of the matter at a press briefing held at the media centre of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) here this afternoon.
He said the militant attack was carried out for destabilizing the country, discouraging the local and foreign investments, pushing the government into trouble and attracting attention of the international militant organisations.
The militants, he said, chose Holey Artisan Cafe for the attack as there were lapses in security there and they would find many foreigners together and escape from the scene easily. They also took 27th Ramadan for the attack to get reward from Allah, he added.
Explaining the delay in submitting the charge-sheet, Monirul said they faced complexities in collecting information as most of the accused in the case had been killed in different assaults of the law enforcers and to make the charge-sheet flawless.
Earlier on July 1, 2016, Neo-JMB operatives laid siege to the Gulshan cafe and killed 20 hostages, including 17 foreigners while two police officers were also killed in the attack.
