A year has passed, but law enforcers have progressed little in hunting the two of the three convicted Islamist militants who were snatched from Mymensingh.
In an operation on February 22 last year, operatives of banned Islamist militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) snatched three of their colleagues, all convicted for various crimes, from a prison van in broad daylight.
On that day, police were taking the JMB leaders – Salahuddin alias Salehin alias Sajeeb, Zahidul Islam alias “Boma” Mizan, and Rakib Hasan – to the Kashimpur high security jail in Gazipur from another jail in Mymensingh.
The JMB operatives, who appeared trained for such so-called rescue missions, came from nowhere, stopped, and cordoned off the prison van, killed an on-guard police constable, broke the lock, and fled with the prisoners.
Of those snatched, Rakib was arrested again a few days later, but was killed in an alleged gunfight between law enforcers and militants.
Soon after the snatching, probe committees formed by law enforcement agencies found slack security arrangements while transporting prisoners. However, none of the committees managed to complete their investigation.
In October last year, eight months after the incident, the duty of investigation was taken from the detectives and given to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police; CID’s organised crime unit is now investigating the incident.
Apart from the Detective Branch (DB) of Mymensingh police, RAB and Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s (DMP’s) Detective Branch have also carried out investigations.
Sanowar Hossain, additional deputy commissioner of the DB of DMP and one of the early investigators, has said before that at least 31 people were involved in the snatching. Five, including two financiers, have been arrested, he claimed at that time.
Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of DMP’s DB, has said before that the jail-break JMB leaders had crossed the border and taken shelter in West Bengal.
However, CID seems to differ with the detective branch.
Mirza Abdullahel Baqui, chief of CID’s organised crime unit, told the Dhaka Tribune that they currently have eight people in custody; of these, three were directly involved in the crime.
When asked how many people took part in the mission, Mirza said: “I suspect there were 10 people.”
He added: “We still do not have much information about the others, but we are sure the snatchers had backing from the Indian JMB as well. JMB’s operations might be mainly based in Bangladesh, but might have a strong backup wing in the neighbouring country.”
“Earlier this month, we took three people on a four-day remand and interrogated them. They have given us some information which we are now analysing,” Mirza said.
“If we know about the location of the snatched militants, then we have the scope to write to the Indian authorities seeking information regarding their whereabouts,” he said.
When asked how long the investigation might take, Mirza said: “Actually, three types of crime were committed in Trishal: The snatching of convicted criminals, use of lethal weapons, and killing of a policemen. We are working on all these crimes together and will file three separate charge sheets.”