Hasnat now arrested in Gulshan attack case

Police investigators formally arrested Abul Hasnat Reza Karim, a Bangladeshi civil engineer with British nationality, in the Gulshan attack case while a metropolitan magistrate remanded him for eight more days in this connection.
Another magistrate court granted the remand of Toronto University student Tahmid Hasib Khan for six more days again to determine his role during the July 1 café attack.
Metropolitan magistrate Emdadul Hoque remanded Hasnat for eight days more after the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit investigator Humayun Kabir appealed to the court to quiz the engineer in the case filed following the militant attack.
During the remand hearing, the prosecution lawyers told the court that the photographs published in the different media indicated that Hasnat was having a chat with one of the attackers.
The court’s general registry officer sub-inspector Farid Miah told the court that the investigators need to interrogate him to find out the people behind the barbaric attack.
‘He will be quizzed to uncover the mystery behind the attack…his photographs were also published in different dailies suggesting that he was definitely involved in the attack,’ assistant public prosecutor Hemayet Uddin Khan Hiron told the court.
In the photos taken from a nearby building, former university teacher Hasnat and Tahmid are seen talking with one of the suspected militants Rohan Ibne Imtiaz on the terrace of the two-storied restaurant building. The photos show Tahmid and Rohan carrying firearms while talking to Hasnat.
During the remand hearing, Hasnat’s counsels Golam Mostafa Lasker and Mahbubul Alam Dulal argued that their client was innocent and was supposed to be a witness in the case.
They also appealed for his bail and alleged that the prosecution had not allowed them access to necessary documents.
Mahbubul Alam said his client was forced to obey the instruction of the attackers at gunpoint to protect his life.
He alleged that although Hasnat was first produced in the court on August 4 under Section 54 of Code of Criminal Procedure, police had been quizzing him since July 2.
The counsels also argued the investigating authority never said till now that Hasnat was involved with the attackers and had rather identified Major Zia, Tamim Chowdhury and Marjan as the mastermind of the attack.
Investigators had named Bangladeshi origin Canadian citizen Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, who goes by the name Shaykh Abu Ibrahim Al-Hanif, as leading a group of militants in Bangladesh closely linked to Daesh, also known as Islamic State, and Bangladesh army’s deserted major Syed Muhammad Ziaul Huq, as the masterminds of the attack.
‘Following the attack, a number of JMB [Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh] men were arrested but none of them mentioned Hasnat,’ said Mahbubul.
The metropolitan magistrate then ordered Hasnat in remand for eight days more.
Hasnat was in court without handcuffs.
Hasnat Karim’s wife Sharmina Parveen said in a statement sent to newspapers: it was clear that he ‘is being interrogated in custody without any lawyer for him, which is contrary to Bangladeshi law and international norms’, which cannot be allowed to continue in blatant violation of all fair and decent standards.
Another metropolitan magistrate, Golam Nabi, on Saturday also remanded Tahmid for six days under Section 54 on suspicion of having links with the attack.
On Friday, the investigators completed an eight-day interrogation of both Hasnat and Tahmid under section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and both were produced in separate courts on Saturday in connection with the attack.
Hasnat, who used to teach at North South University, was arrested from in front of Aarong in Gulshan around 7:25pm while Tahmid was held from Bashundhara Residential Area around 8:45pm on August 3 on suspicion of having links with Gulshan attackers, police said.
The families had been complaining that the two were picked up by police after the attack and since then had been missing.
The attackers killed 20 hostages — nine Italian, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, one Indian and one Bangladesh-born US citizen — and two police officers on July 1.
Tahmid went to the restaurant with two female students of a private university.
Hasnat went to the restaurant with his wife and two children, family members said, adding that they were celebrating the birthday of one of his daughters.
Islamic State took credit for the attack and published photos of the victims and the attackers within hours, but the government blames JMB, a banned militant outfit.
The attackers allowed the family to leave before army commandos stormed the café to end the country’s deadliest militant attack.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net