GULSHAN CAFÉ ATTACK
Charge sheet by this year
New JMB boro hujur arrested
The Counter Terrorism Unit of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (CTU of DMP) has said that the police were working on finalising the charge-sheet on the Holey Artisan attack and it will likely be submitted by the end of the year.
Police have so far confirmed the involvement of about 20 people in the Gulshan caf attack including Tamim Choudhury, Sarwar Jahan and Marjan, who were killed in a gunfight with the police at Kalyanpur last year, CTU chief Monirul Islam said at a press briefing at the DMP Media Centre yesterday.
The police have also arrested one Maulana Abul Kashem, who went by the nom de guerre Boro Hujur or spiritual head of the new Jamaitul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), said the CTU chief.
Maulana Abul Kashem is one of the masterminds of the Gulshan Holey Artisan Caf attack on July 1, 2016, in which 22 people, mostly foreigners, were killed, he added.
CTU chief Monirul Islam told reporters that Boro Hujur was picked up from his hideout at Senapara Parbata of Mirpur on Thursday night.
Being the Amir of the new JMB, Kashem gave the approval for the Gulshan caf attack.
A former principal of a madrasa, or seminary, at Ranirbandar in north-western Dinajpur district, Kashem, a native of Kurigram, had also been arrested in 2010. The police came to
know about him in 2015, when he went by the alias of Shaikh Abu Mohammad Aiman Hafizullah. Later he came to be known as Boro Hujur, who guided the new JMB, turning it more militant with his fiery preachings. He also met Tamim Choudhury following his return from Canada. Tamim was killed last year with other militants in police operations in Narayanganj during the hunt for the caf attackers.
The CTU got the trail of Kashem after arresting another new JMB top militant, Jahangir Alam, also known as Rajiv Gandhi, described as another mastermind of the Gulshan caf attack. But the police failed to trace Kashem at the addresses given by him.
But the breakthrough came after the recent arrest of Boro Mizan, the supplier of guns and explosives to those militants who carried out the Gulshan caf attack.
Although the police described Maulana Kashem as the spiritual head of the new JMB, the extent of his involvement in the Gulshan attack, along with his name, address and the past, was being ascertained, the CTU chief said. We suspect that about 30-32 people were involved in the caf attack. The caf was frequented by foreigners, the CTU chief added.
