A list of bailed and absconding operatives of banned militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) is being drawn up by investigators in a bid to solve the murder of Faisal Arefin Dipan, publisher of slain blogger Avijit Roy.
A high official of the Detective Branch, asking not to be named, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday that investigators were preparing a list of Ansarullah members who had earlier been arrested or located by law enforcers but had managed to give the authorities the slip.
“Investigators are trying to track them down with the aid of technology,” the official said.
Detectives are trying to identify the author of two Twitter posts, made in the name of an outfit calling itself Ansar al-Islam, that were issued shortly after the murder. Investigators say the tweets originated in Jatrabari and Wari in Dhaka’s old town.
The tweets, which claimed responsibility for the Dipan murder and another deadly attack on Saturday, were later removed.
Police yesterday said the two attacks were conducted by separate sleeper cells, but said the attacks had been masterminded and trained by the same group.
Tanvir Hassan Zoha, director of operations at Insight Bangladesh Foundation and focus person of the Cyber Nirapotta Programme under the Information and Communications Technology Division, told the Dhaka Tribune that his team had collected information about the Twitter account holder and sent the information over to detectives.
Monirul Islam, DB joint commissioner, said both of Saturday’s attacks were planned and masterminded by a single entity and added that the investigation would reveal more about the identity of the killers and whether they are linked to other recent extremist attacks.
The DB chief did not comment further on the identity of the masterminds of the attacks, but a police source said the brains behind the bloodshed was the anti-liberation Jamaat-e-Islami party.
He said their motive was to undermine and embarrass the government and to foil the war crimes trials.
“Jamaat may be providing support or backup, but the strategy and attacking style indicate these attacks are the work of Ansarullah sleeper cells,” the police official said.
An intelligence agency high official, asking not to be named, told the Dhaka Tribune that war criminal Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid was the chief of the wing of Jamaat involved in sabotage and violent acts.
“Because their leader is in trouble, they are using targeted killings carried out by Ansarullah to create disorder,” the official said.
He said that Ansarullah was being used because of its use of cut-out or sleeper cell tactics, making it difficult to identify the planners and financiers of the attacks.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal yesterday told the Dhaka Tribune: “No matter who the attackers are, whether they belong to Ansarullah Bangla Team, Hizb-ut Tahrir or Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh, the root of all this is none other than Jamaat-Shibir.”
Around 2:30pm on Saturday, one of Avijit Roy’s publishers, Ahmedur Rashid Tutul, his friend blogger Ranadipam Basu and poet Tareq Rahim were attacked at Tutul’s Shuddhashar publication office in Lalmatia.
At almost exactly the same time, Jagriti Prokashoni publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan was killed in an attack in his office in the capital’s Aziz Supermarket.
No one has yet been arrested in connection with the two cases.
Shahbagh police station Officer-in-Charge Abu Bakar Siddique confirmed to the Dhaka Tribune that a case against unidentified assailants had been filed over the Dipan murder by his wife Dr Razia Rahman Jolly.
“Ahmedur Rashid Tutul, who came under attack at his Shuddhashar publication office in Lalmatia, filed a case with Mohammadpur police station,” Muntasirul Islam, deputy commissioner of DMP (Media), told the Dhaka Tribune.
Muntasirul said although the cases were filed a day after the incidents, police began investigating the attacks immediately. “We are trying to collect information about the attackers by speaking to the victims, eyewitnesses and other sources.”
Investigators are also analysing video footage collected from eight nearby closed-circuit television cameras installed at Aziz Super Market.
The footage is already in the hands of investigators.
DB deputy commissioner Masruqure Rahman Khaled told the Dhaka Tribune that the detective branch is conducting a shadow investigation into the attacks.
