Failure of all forces led to militant attack

Holey Artisan
Holey Artisan

About a year before the Holey Artisan militant attack, the IS-supported ‘neo-JMB’ in Bangladesh had planned an attack to stir up chaos in the country. They opened up six training centres in Dhaka and carried out 14 killings in one year. They used the old JMB contacts in India to bring in arms. But no one managed to detect the militant’s activities before the Holey Artisan incident. It is alleged that these attacks could not be avoided due to insufficient information with the intelligence agencies. The law enforcement agencies also were not adequately active.

Verifying whether such allegations were true, Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit head Munirul Islam said, this cannot be called an intelligence failure. There were vague reports that an attack may take place in Dhaka’s diplomatic zone, but there was no specific information about the extent of the attack.

Six of the eight persons arrested in the Holey Artisan militant attack have given confessional statements in the Dhaka chief metropolitan magistrate’s court. They said a few days after the top leaders of Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) were hanged in 2007, JMB members gathered together in Hilli, Dinajpur and decided to carry on with their organisational activities. They were active both within the prisons and outside, recruited activists, taught them how to make bombs and continued with their activities despite internal conflicts and killings.

When Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi began the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on 29 June 2014, a faction of JMB was inspired and decided to carry out this organisation’s activities in Bangladesh. Canadian national of Bangladeshi origin Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury and several other urban and relatively well-to-do young men joined in this move. They left their homes for the sake of ‘jihad’, killing persons of different religions, teachers, physicians, ‘pir’ followers and priests.

The confessional statements given by those accused in the Holey Artisan case indicate that the intelligence agencies were not aware about the missing young men actually joining JMB activities or neo-JMB, or about the killings and attacks by the old and new militants.

Professor of international relations at Dhaka University, Imtiaz Ahmed, told Prothom Alo, had the law enforcement been vigilant, the Holey Artisan militant attack would not have taken place. The experience was gained only after the attack. Had the police officers any idea about suicidal attacks, they would not have tried to enter Holey Artisan in such a manner after the attack began.

Giving testimony under Section 164 in court, Rakibul Islam Regan who was arrested after the Holey Artisan incident spoke of six training centres. After coming to Dhaka from Bogura, Rakibul and the others first stayed in a room of a five-storey building in Mirpur. They then set up training centres in a flat on the third floor of a the mazar mosque in Mirpur 1, in a five-storey flat next to Kasem’s shop in Manipur, in Boubazar of Paikpara, in Notun Bazar of Paikpara and in Kalyanpur.

Seven persons, include five of the Holey Artisan militants, were trained in the four-storey house of Boubazar, Paikpara. This was the second batch of trainees. Rakibul inspired them towards ‘istehadi’ or suicidal attacks. Such training included physical prowess, as well as dismantling and assembling weapons. Coordinator of the Holey Artisan attack Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, Marzan, Major Zahid, and Basharuzzaman Chocolate would visit these centres from time to time and provide them with funds.

It was the responsibility of Aslam Hossain alias Rashed alias Rash to take the young men to the centres. In his confessional statement to Dhaka metropolitan magistrate Sadbir Yasin Ahsan Chowdhury, Aslam Hossain said that the young men who wanted to leave home to join jihad, would contact Tamim Chowdhury through a secret app. Aslam would pick them up from a specific place and take them to the centres.

He had picked up three of the young men who later were involved in the Holey Artisan attack, BRAC University student Rohan Imtiaz on 25 or 26 December 2015 from in front of Lalmatia Aarong, Nibras Islam on 26 February 2016 from near Daffodil University in Sukrabad, Dhanmondi, and, two days later on 28 February, Mir Sameh Mobassher from near Dhanmondi Lake, and took them to the training centre at Mirpur-10.

Aslam’s Kalyanpur mess and house, and Tanvir Kader’s house in Basundhara were used at militant dens. In their testimonies, Aslam, Rakibul Islam alias Regan and Jahangir Alam alias Rajib Gandhi, said a few days before the Holey Artisan attack, Aslam and Rajib Gandhi had conducted a ‘recce’ of Gulshan Park and Holey Artisan Bakery. In May 2016, Rohan Imtiaz and Nibras Islam were taken to the river Buriganga for hands-on training to blasting grenades. They carried this out and returned safely to their den. They never had to face any law enforcement agency.

Jahangir Alam alias Rajib Gandhi, in his testimony referred to himself as the North Bengal military head of JMB. He admitted responsibility for 13 killings before the Holey Artisan incident.

Hadisur Rahman alias Sagar said they had consolidated their strength in five districts down south before the Holey Artisan attack. He said that in February or March 2016, some boys of their organisation rented the house of retired army personnel Kausar Ali at the Sonali intersection near the Hamd bus stand in Jhenaidah. It was in that mess they they talked to Nibras, Mobassher and Shariful Islam Payel. They said that a big attack would be carried out in Dhaka’s diplomatic zone.

In his testimony, Abdus Sabur Khan alias Sohel Mahfuz said firearms and grenades supplied by him were used in the Holey Artisan attack. He first met Tamim Chowdhury towards the beginning of Ramadan in 2016 in Mirpur 10. Following his orders, he contacted old members in India through his apps and mobile and arranged for arms, ammunition and grenades which he handed over to Chhoto Mizan.

The confessional statements of the accused reveal that militant activities took place in Dhaka’s Turag, Ashulia, Tongi, Gazipur’s Board Bazar and several places of Bogura. Arms were transferred from Chittagong by train. Internal clashes in 2014 led to Dr Nazrul Islam to be killed, followed by the murder to Fazle Rabbi two years later.

After the Holey Artisan Bakery incident, at least 80 persons were killed in anti-militant operations, many of whom were missing.

Security analyst M Sakhawat Hossain told Prothom Alo, “In my opinion, the intelligence agencies failed. Intelligence activities must be stepped up to prepare for the future. If anyone goes missing, such information must be given due attention.”

* This report appeared in Bangla in Prothom Alo and has been rewritten in English by Ayesha Kabir