DT e-Paper 29 March 2017

News 3
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2017
5 days of death and terror comes to an end
• Tarek Mahmud, from Sylhet,
Mohammed Serajul Islam,
Sylhet
After five painstaking days that included
a suicide attack on a crowd
and numerous other explosions,
the raid on a militant den in the
Shibbari area of Sylhet has finally
ended through a combined effort
of Army’s Para-Commando battalion,
CTTC, SWAT, RAB and police.
Ten people, including four militants,
have died in these five days,
while more than 40 people have
been injured.
Earlier in the day, a huge explosion
triggered by refrigerator
rigged with IEDs left the building
structurally unstable, said military
intelligence unit Director Brig Gen
Fakhrul Ahsan.
Ahsan officially called an end
to the operation at a press briefing
around 8pm yesterday although
there are live IEDs on the second,
third and fourth floor of the building.
The Criminal Investigation Department
of the police will now
take over the site to defuse the explosives.
The bodies of four militants, including
a woman, were recovered
from the hideout and sent to MAG
Osmani Medical College for autopsy.
The autopsy was conducted by
a 4 member team under the direction
of Dr Shamsul Islam.
Two of the bodies, including
that of the female, were handed
over on Monday, but handover of
the other two bodies were delayed
till yesterday as they were still
wearing suicide vests.
It is suspected that one of the
male militants is New JMB leader
Mainul Islam Musa, but law enforcers
were not ready to confirm it before
the autopsy report.
The initial autopsy report on
the female militant suggested she
was one Morjina. Morjina’s ID was
used to rent the flat, and she is also
suspected to be the sister of Kamal,
one of the deceased New JMB
militants from the recent raid in
Sitakunda. However, police are as
yet unclear as to whether this is her
real name.
Police said that identification of
the militants was proving difficult
as the bodies were unrecognizable.
Morjina was so badly burned that
Musa likely among dead militants
• Kamrul Hasan and Tarek
Mahmud
The Counter-Terrorism and Transnational
Crimes (CTTC) unit of police
suspects that one of the four
militants killed during the joint
operation of security forces in Sylhet’s
Shibbari could be Mainul Islam
Musa, the alleged chief coordinator
of New JMB.
CTTC investigators told reporters
yesterday that a photo of one
of the dead militants bore strong
resemblance to Musa.
On Monday, Bangladesh Army
recovered two of the four bodies
from inside Atia Mahal and handed
them over to the local police.
A CTTC high official, seeking
anonymity, said: “One of the militants
does look like Musa, but faces
usually get mangled during such
incidents. We are trying to match
the face of the militant with that of
Musa using the photo we received
during the Ashkona raid. We will
collect DNA samples and other evidence
and send it to the forensic
lab for examination.”
Police collected Musa’s picture
from the tenant form that he
provided to the house owner’s
daughter while renting a flat in
Ashkona.
Police received Musa’s name
from Afif Qadri, son of top New
JMB leader Tanvir Qadri, who gave
Para-commandos break through a wall during a raid of a militant den at Atia Mahal in Pathanpara area of Shibbari, Sylhet. The
photo is a screen-grab of a video released by ISPR on Sunday
a confessional statement before a
court, said CTTC chief Monirul Islam
at a press conference last year.
After Ashkona raid on December
24 last year, Monirul confirmed
that Major (retd) Zahidul Islam alias
Zahid and some other top leaders
and mid-level leaders of New
JMB have been on the run since the
death of their leader and Gulshan
attack mastermind Tamim Chowdhury
in another CTTC raid.
Once a second tier leader in New
JMB, Musa then took charge of coordinating
the group, Monirul said.
After the arrest of Jahangir alias
Rajiv Gandhi, he became the most
active leader in the field, said CTTC
officials.
Musa, who was described as
well-mannered by his neighbours
back at his village home in Bagmara,
Rajshahi, was radicalised by
Faisal, his expatriate friend who
lives in Bahrain.
He was an avid follower of executed
JMB leader Siddiqul Islam
alias Bangla Bhai and was close
to Major Zahid, living in the same
building with Zahid and his family,
his mother Sufia Begum said.
Before leaving home for socalled
jihad, Musa destroyed
everything that could link him to
his home, so that law enforcers
He was an avid
follower of executed
JMB leader Siddiqul
Islam alias Bangla
Bhai and was close
to Major Zahid
could not track him, she added.
He was very active on social
media but he removed his friends
from his Facebook account and
eventually deactivated his account.
“When his involvement in
militancy came to light following
the killing of Zahid, I found his
phone switched off. I tried to see
his Facebook page but did not find
it,” said one of Musa’s former colleagues,
requesting anonymity. •
New JMB, new bombs
• Tarek Mahmud and
Kamrul Hasan
Law enforcers say militant outfit
New JMB is changing their modus
operandi, going by raids over the past
two years.
The recent raid in Sitakunda, codenamed
Operation Assault 16, revealed
intriguing facts about the change in
the bombs used by the militants.
Conspicuous wiring used by a
tenant raised the suspicion of the landlord,
who later discovered they were
used in explosive timers. He alerted the
police which led to the Sitakunda raid.
Based on recent information,
police believe JMB has indeed evolved
their arsenal. Bombs are no longer of
rudimentary design but are becoming
more lethal.
An active component of the latest
bombs is ammonium nitrate, an
explosive mixture used to blast stone
in quarries.
According to a member of the
Counter Terrorism and Transnational
Crimes (CTTC) unit of the police, ammonium
nitrate is imported from India
through Chapainawabganj as an industrial
material and is strictly regulated.
The CTTC official also disclosed
that the company which imports
the explosive material has also been
identified.
CTTC suspect Mizanur Rahman
alias Boma Mizan is New JMB’s demolitions
expert. However, they are unsure
whether it is Mizan who has adapted
his methods or whether someone new
is designing the new bombs.
Mizan’s signature bombs used
gunpowder, an assortment of chemicals
and a pin to produce a crudely-made
grenade.
The recent bombs are being improvised
and improved upon with ammonium
nitrate and a new auxiliary switch
that allows for delayed explosions.
During Operation Twilight at
Sylhet, army spokesperson Brig Gen
Fakhrul Ahsan told the media that
the bombs discovered at Atia Mahal
– the militant den – surprised the law
enforcers.
He noted that the shockwave,
when the bombs were defused, could
be felt about two kilometres away.
According to the Bomb Disposal
Unit (BDU), the bombs recovered
from the Ashkona militant den in
December last year were much more
powerful than any explosives recovered
before.
Additional Deputy Commissioner
(BDU) Rahmatullah Chowdhury said
the timers on the latest bombs were
set to go off after four or five minutes.
Police suspect the two blasts outside
the Sylhet den were time bombs,
and said they would know more after
the operation. •
DT
it could only be discerned that she
was female through henna on her
toenails, while the faces and bodies
of the others were mangled.
The raid had begun on early Friday
after police had cordoned off
the area around the militant hideout,
Atia Mahal, at 1:30am, upon
information received during the recent
raid in Sitakunda, Chittagong.
The Brigadier General said a
number of factors contributed to
ensuring that this particular raid
would not be over quickly. Foremost
among these was the “well
trained and well equipped” militants,
who had managed to rig the
entire building with improvised
explosive devices (IEDs), he said.
SWAT had made the initial assessment
before requesting assistance
from the army.
The five-storey building had
6 flats on each floor, totalling 30
flats. Of these, families were staying
in 28 flats. The trapped families
were rescued on Saturday morning
through the efforts of the para-commandos.
A total of 78 people were rescued
from the building, including
30 males, 27 females and 21 children.
Saturday, however, would not
end on such a happy note. Six
people, including two suspected
bombers and two police officers,
were killed and more than 40 people
injured in what was initially
described as twin “suicide” blasts.
The intelligence chief of RAB Lt Col
Abul Kalam Azad was also seriously
injured in the explosion and is now
undergoing treatment in Singapore.
Law enforcers on Sunday said
the explosions may have been triggered
by a “time bomb-like” device
found in a bag no more than 250
metres from Atia Mahal. A case was
filed in this regard on Monday. •