Identities of dead militants still a mystery

More than four days have passed since the Ashkona blast and Khilgaon check-post shooting but the identities of the dead in the incidents are still unknown to the Rapid Action Battalion. Commander Mufti Mahmud Khan, director of RAB’s Legal and Media Wing, on Wednesday said they were still trying to ascertain the identities of the dead in the two incidents. “Their DNA samples and other body parts have been sent to the forensics lab for analysing and we would be able to make progress in identifying them after we receive the reports,” he added. However, speculations and claims have surfaced regarding the identify of the Ashkona suicide bomber recently. A day after the Ashkona blast, a woman made claims that the alleged bomber was her son but the RAB refuted the claim saying the information she provided during primary interrogation was not satisfactory. Later, a rumour had surfaced that the bomber ‘s name is Jewel Rana. A RAB official, seeking anonymity, claimed the rumour started after a minimal percentage of the attacker’s fingerprints matched with the Election Commission database and the name came up as Jewel Rana. However, the progress went in vain as the person who was being identified as the attacker came to the RAB office on Tuesday to report that he is alive. The official said Jewel claimed he had lost his national ID few days before the Ashkona incident. Moreover, the fake national ID data in the commission’s database had a prompt where it stated that the fingerprint has been edited recently, the RAB official added. He said either a hack of the Election Commission database or an internal sabotage is being suspected. Meanwhile, RAB sources said no claims regarding the identity of the motorcyclist shot in Khilgaon has been made yet. RAB has lodged two separate cases with the Airport and Khilgaon police stations under Anti-Terrorism Act regarding the two incidents. On March 17, an alleged suicide bomber blew himself up sneaking into a RAB barrack in the Dhaka’s Ashkona near Shahjalal airport. The next day, a RAB check-post team shot a motorcyclist, who was allegedly carrying explosives, in Dhaka’s Khilgaon area.