Police’s Detective Branch yesterday arrested two key members of banned militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team for their suspected involvement in several incidents of murder and attack on secular activists including blogger Niladri Chatterjee.
One of them, Saad Al Nahiyan, is the nephew of State Minister for Labour Mujibul Huq Chunnu. He was arrested in Mirpur in the evening, detectives said. He is an evening MBA student at Dhaka University.
Another Masud Rana was arrested in Uttara last afternoon. He is a relative of Ariful Islam, one of the key accused in secular writer Oyasiqur Rahman Babu murder case. Arif was caught red-handed along with another killer Zikrullah – both having academic background at Hefazat-e-Islam’s Hathazari Madrasa.Nahiyan is a charge-sheeted accused in a case filed over the attack on blogger Asif Mohiuddin in 2013. He was arrested on March 31, 2013, but got bail on September 25 last year. He also gave confessional statement in that case.
On the other hand, Masud was also made an accused in the case, but his name had been dropped from the charge sheet.
DB Deputy Commissioner (east) Mahbub Alam, supervising Niloy murder case probe, confirmed to the Dhaka Tribune about the arrests. He said that the duo had been interrogated at the DB Headquarters.
Three other Ansarullah members accused in Asif’s case – Md Kauser Hossain, Kamal Hossain Sarder and Md Kamal Uddin, who are now on bail – would be interrogated in Niloy murder case too.
The detectives are now searching for Ansarullah operations wing chief Redwanul Azad Rana, sleeper cell leaders Nabir Hossain Nabin and Abdul Kabir alias Zaber. They might be behind the recent killing of several bloggers, detectives said adding that they were conducting drives to arrest the trio.
Former North South University student Rana is considered as the alleged mastermind in the killing of bloggers Ahmed Rajeeb Haider in 2013, and Avijit Roy, Oyasiqur and Ananta Bijoy Das this year. Tk5 lakh bounty was also declared for his arrest. DB officials earlier claimed that Rana had flown to Australia.
The charge framing hearing in Asif’s case has been delayed because of the absence of the plaintiff, now staying in Germany. The attack was made on January 14, 2013, but he survived.
Rajeeb was murdered by Ansarullah members on February 15 the same year. He actively participated in the Shahbagh movement.
Investigators said that accused in Asif’s case, Zaber might be present during Niloy murder as the writer’s wife alleged that one of the four killers had been a left-hander. The eight deep wounds found in Niloy’s throat were done by a left-hander, hospital sources said.
Nahiyan’s father school teacher Nazrul Huq Nannu, however, alleged that his son had been picked up by the DB police on Sunday.
Nannu, a two-time union parishad chairman in Tarail of Kishoreganj, claimed that Nahiyan had not been involved in the attack on Asif.
Nahiyan said that he had got involved with Ansarullah since 2012 after listening to the sermons of its chief Mufti Jasim Uddin Rahmani, now in jail. He went to Rahmani’s den in Mohammadpur area with Redwanul Rana.
A follower of international terrorist groups al-Qaeda and Taliban, Rahmani used to profess killing of atheists in the name of protecting Islam.
Additional Deputy Commissioner Saiful Islam said that they were conducting drives to arrest the militants freed on bail. “We have already found the trace of some of them. They will be arrested soon,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.
GD probe: It was Kabirul
Niloy’s friend Dev Jyoti Rudro yesterday claimed that no one had contacted him over police’s refusing the slain writer to file a general diary on May 14. Rudro accompanied Niloy on that day when the latter had been feeling insecure.
After the killing of Niloy, a committee was formed by the police to probe the matter.
The investigators have found that on that day Khilgaon OC Mustafiz Bhuiyan and Duty Officer SI Shamsul Islam were on leave, and Inspector Kabirul Islam was the acting OC. Kabirul is now working as an inspector of the DB police.