The Detective Branch (DB) of police yesterday said an Indian citizen was involved in a jailbreak operation in Mymensingh that snatched three militants from police custody and left a policeman dead.
A DB high official, on condition of anonymity, said the Indian national was in charge of arranging to get the prison-break Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) leaders to India. He identified the Indian national as Leku, but said his identity would be verified in further investigations. In Bangladesh Leku stayed in Savar, the DB official said.
“The information surfaced while investigating the Bardhaman bomb blast and the role of JMB commander Sheikh Rehmatullah alias Masum alias Sajid,” a DB high official told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday, on condition of anonymity.
On February 23, JMB operatives mounted an operation to snatch Salahuddin alias Salehin alias Sajeeb, Zahidul Islam alias “Boma” Mizan and Rakib Hasan from police custody in an attack on a prison van in Trishal, Mymensingh during transport from Kashimpur Jail in Gazipur.
The attack on the prison van in the Trishal area of Mymensingh broke three top JMB leaders out of police custody. JMB men killed a police constable.
One of outlaws, Rakib, was re-arrested and killed in a “gunfight” with police the next day. The two others, Salehin and Mizan, managed to get away.
Monirul Islam, DB joint commissioner, said the jail-break JMB leaders crossed the border and took shelter in West Bengal.
Another DB official investigating the Trishal attack told the Dhaka Tribune that the militants used five motorbikes, two micro-buses and a truck in the operation. The truck was used to create traffic jam and the micro-buses were used as getaway vehicles, the official said.
The break out was earlier planned to be executed in Konabari, but was later moved to Trishal out of security considerations, the official said.
The Indian national was supposed to ferry the fugitives to India. DB officials could not say which militant outfit he belonged to.
Sanowar Hossain, additional deputy commissioner of DB police and chief of the counter terrorism unit, said investigators arrested five of 31 people believed to be involved in the Trishal attack, two of whom are financiers.
Sanowar said of the 31 wanted for the attack, the name in position six of the list is “Sajidur.”
Police said they believed that this is none other than JMB commander Sheikh Rehmatullah alias Masum alias Sajid who was arrested in West Bengal and is in the custody of India’s National Investigation Agency.
Sajid, bailed out from jail some months earlier in the JMB snatching incident, may have fled to India with the snatched JMB leaders after conducting the operation, the chief of the counter terrorism unit said.
“We need to investigate further to completely verify it,” ADC Sanowar said.
A DB official involved in the investigation said JMB funding was connected to the cloth trading business in the northern part of the Bangladesh and to kidnap and ransom operations as well.
The official said the investigation yielded a list of suspected businesspeople connected to the illegal trade in explosives.