Suspected planner, aide killed in city raid [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Suspected planner, aide killed in city raid

Local January 07, 2017

of Dhaka Metropolitan Police at Mohammadpur in Dhaka early Friday.
Police officials said that both Marjan, of Afuriya in Pabna municipal area, and Saddam, of Char Bidyananda under Rajarhat in Kurigram, were aged about 25 and leaders of a new faction of Jamaatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh.
They said that Marjan was wanted in several cases including the Gulshan café attack that killed 22 people, 17 of whom were foreigners and two were police officers while Saddam was wanted in at least 10 cases including the murder of Japanese national Hoshi Kunio in Rangpur.
‘Marjan and his cohort was killed in a gunfight during a operation of CTTC in Bheribandh area of
Mohammadpur…Police also recovered a pistol, bullets, explosives and a motorcycle from the spot,’ metropolitan police additional deputy commissioner (media wing) Mohammad Yusuf Ali told New Age.
Counter terrorism unit officials claimed that on a tip off that Marjan would pass through Mohammadpur, police set up a checkpoint in Bheribandh area early Friday and they signalled a motorcycle carrying three people to stop at about 3:00am.
They said that the motorcycle tried to flee violating the signal and hurling bombs on counter terrorism unit members that prompted a gunfight while two bullet-hit people fell from the motorcycle and another managed to flee.
The two were immediately taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where they were declared dead.
In-charge of the police outpost at the hospital sub-inspector Bachchu Mia, referring to emergency department doctors, said that the two were brought dead at about 3:30am. ‘They had bullet wounds.’
Local residents including vendors Abdul Halim and Nuruzzaman told reporters in the morning that they heard sounds of explosions and gunshots at about 3:00am.
The two were killed as extrajudicial killings by law enforcing agencies in reported ‘gunfight’, ‘exchange of bullets’ and ‘crossfire’.
A report of rights organisation Ain O Salish Kendra on human rights situation in 2016 showed that at least 195 people fell victim to extrajudicial killings in reported ‘crossfire’, ‘gunfight’, and ‘exchange of bullets’ and in custody. The number of people killed extra-judicially was 192 in 2015 and 128 in 2014.
Marjan’s name came to light in August 2016 when the counter terrorism unit chief told reporters that they were looking for Gulshan café attack coordinator namely Marjan, which might be his organisational name, not the actual one.
The unit came to know the name while interrogating extremism suspects belonged to a new faction of JMB. Marjan had nationwide connections, the unit chief had said.
As his photo was released by the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Chittagong University officials identified him in August 2016 as Nurul Islam, a student of Arabic department at the university in 2012-2013 session.
New Age correspondent in Chittagong, quoting university officials, reported that Marjan passed his first year final examinations with CGPA 3.48 in 2014, but attended a few classes in his second academic year.
Marjan’s father Nizam Uddin came to know about the death from the neighbours who witnessed the news in television, reported New Age correspondent in Pabna.
‘If he was an extremist and was involved in killing people, he had got his due punishment…But, we do not know whether he was an extremist. Even if he was an extremist, police should nab those who made him extremist,’ Nizam, a weaver, told reporters at his house.
He said that it was not possible for him to bring his son’s body home as it was expensive and expected that the government would give the body to the family for burial.
Marjan’s wife Priyati and two other women were arrested and a JMB suspect ‘committed suicide’ during a raid by the counter terrorism unit at Azimpur in Dhaka on September 10, 2016.
New Age correspondent in Rangpur reported that deceased Saddam’s father Tajul Alam Mia alleged that Saddam was picked up on April 14, 2016 from his in-law’s house at Sundartganj in Gaibandha.
‘He was picked up by people who identified them as police and had remained missing since then,’ he said.
He said that they knew that Saddam was accused in two cases – one for killing Japanese national Hoshi Kunio in Rangpur and another for killing a khadem of a shrine at Kaunia in Rangpur.
Tajul alleged that police had declined to record a general diary about the picking up of Saddam.
Saddam married in December 2014 and has a son, he said, adding that he did not know whereabouts of his daughter-in-law and grandson.