Police hunt for Tamim’s 12 accomplices

Apart from their chief Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, the law enforcers have identified at least 12 second- and third-tier leaders of the New JMB and are now conducting raids to track them down Tamim, a Bangladesh-born Canadian citizen, maintains contact with these leaders for planning, recruitment, training, and collection of funds and arms. He reportedly visited the Kallyanpur den of the group before the July 26 raid killed nine of his members. Of them, four were leaders while the five others belonged to a suicide squad of the Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh faction, police say. Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Hoque on Tuesday said that they had identified the second- and third-tier militant leaders associated with Tamim. Monirul Islam, chief of the DMP’s counter-terrorism unit, said that they had got information about some of the 12 suspects. “We are trying to locate them,” he said. According to intelligence sources, Junayed Khan and his brother Ibrahim Hasan Khan are two of the suspects the police are searching for. The six others are Azadul Kabiraz, Mamun, Khaled, Manik, Iqbal and Ripon. Identity of the four other militant leaders could not be confirmed. Monirul said these could be fake names. Militants, especially the leaders, take many names to evade arrest. After the Gulshan and Sholakia attacks, Tamim had plans to carry out more attacks in Bangladesh, for which he had gathered some trained members at the Kallyanpur den. Saiful Islam, additional deputy commissioner of the CT unit, told the Dhaka Tribune that they had already arrested a number of medium- and field-level operatives of the New JMB. The detainees named Tamim as their chief. But there could be other top leaders. “We will be able to get a clear picture of the organisational structure once we arrest Tamim,” he added.