GULSHAN CAFÉ ATTACK Shohel Mahfuz remanded in police custody

A metropolitan magistrate in Dhaka on Sunday remanded a suspect of Gulshan café attack in police custody for seven days as the counter terrorism officials said they wanted to grill him to arrest other suspects and to identify their financers.
Metropolitan magistrate AHM Toaha allowed the investigators to interrogate the suspect, Abdus Sabur Khan alias Shohel Mahfuz, to recover arms and ammunitions in connection with the case filled after Gulshan café attack.
The suspect, Abdus Sabur Khan, 34, who had numerous names including Shohel Mahfuz, Shohail Mahfuz, Musafir, Joy, Nasirullah, Suhail, Hathkata and Sahadat Sheikh, was also wanted by Indian National Investigation Agency over an explosion in a rented house at Khagragarh under Burdwan Police Station in West Bengal on October 2, 2014.
During the remand hearing, the public prosecutor, Abdullah Abu, said the suspect had done many crimes against the government and also against the sovereignty of the country.
The magistrate neither asked whether the suspect engaged any counsel nor the suspect was asked whether he had anything to say.
Shohel and three of his associates were captured in a joint operation by police from its headquarters, Bogra and Chapainawabganj in a remote mango orchard in Shibganj in bordering Chapainawabganj district. 
The CTTC officials said Shohel returned to Bangladesh in December 2014 and joined hands with Bangladeshi-Canadian Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, a coordinator of Islamic State-inspired faction of the JMB, who was killed in a joint operation in Naraynaganj on August 27, 2016, along with two of his fellows.
The Indian authorities branded him as a member of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh and had announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh for any information leading to his arrest.
The counter terrorism officials said Shohel Mahfuz was one of the key figures after the then JMB leader Saidur Rhaman and current absconding leader Salauddin Salehin.
Rapid Action Battalion in 2013 termed Shohel Mahfuz as the top leader of the JMB. 
The police headquarters assistant inspector general (confidential) Md Moniruzzaman told New Age that he was the pioneer to establish the link between old JMB and neo- JMB. 
Another interrogator said they would try to explore ‘the Indian connection to the militancy in Bangladesh’.
New Age correspondent in Chapainawabganj said that police also arrested three others with Shohel — JMB’s information technology specialist Hafijur Rahman Hasan, 28, of Chapainawabganj, their arms supplier Jewel and the group’s Rajshahi-Chapainawabganj-Natore coordinator Mustafa Kamal Jamal, also a mason.
The Chapainawabganj senior judicial magistrate Shahidul Islam remanded three suspects for three days each in connection with another case filed after April 27 after the Operation Eagle Hunt at a suspected militant den at Shibnagar Trimohoni village under Mobarakpur union of Shibganj upazila in the district.
In the Operation Eagle Hunt, four suspect extremists in affiliation with IS-backed JMB were killed or blown up while two others were captured alive.
On July 1, 2016, twenty hostages -- nine Italians, seven Japanese, one Indian, one Bangladesh-born American and two Bangladeshis -- were killed as the militants sprayed them with bullets indiscriminately or cut their throats to confirm their deaths inside the Café.
Besides, two police officers -- Banani Police Station’s then officer-in-charge Salauddin Ahmed Khan and Detective Branch assistant commissioner Robiul Islam -- were shot dead when police tried to take control of the bakery. Five militants were shot dead the following day, a restaurant chef was killed in commando firing while another restaurant employee died during interrogation a week later. 

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net