DHAKA: A court here granted 7-day remand to the mastermind and his two accomplices of the bloggers Avijit and Bijoy killings.

Metropolitan Magistrate Shahriar Mahmud Adnan passed the order on Wednesday when police produced them before the court with 10-day remand plea.

Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested mastermind Touhidur Rahman, 58, his two accomplices Sadek Ali Mithu, 28 and Aminul Mallik, 35 from city’s Nilkhet and Dhanmondi areas early Tuesday.

All of them are the members of Islamist militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team. Of them, Touhid, who is an UK expatriate and information technology (IT) expert, is the financer of the militant gang.

Jasim Uddin Rahmani, who is the organizer of the militant gang and now at Kashimpur Jail, gave directions of killing bloggers from inside the jail through his younger brother Abul Bashar and Sadek Ali Mithu, he said. Touhidur Rahman, later took the charge of making plot to kill bloggers at the directive of Jasim, he also said.

Five operatives of the militant outfit took part in the killing mission of blogger Avijit and Ananta, he said, adding that of them Sadek Ali Mithu was arrested while the efforts are on to capture the remaining others, Ramjan alias Siam, Naim, Julhas Biswas and Zafran Al Hasan.

Members of the killing mission assembled at the field of Hazi Mohammad Mohsin Hall of Dhaka University just three hours ahead of brutally stabbing Avijit to death at TSC area around 9 on the night on February 26 last, he also said.

Hours after the killing Ansarullah Bangla-7 claimed the responsibility of the killing of Avijit through a post on social media, he informed.

While they chopped to death blogger Ananta near his residence at Subidbazar Nurani Residential area of Sylhet city on May 12 last and similarly Ansarullah Bangla-8, Indian subcontinent chapter of al-Qaeda claimed responsibility through a post.

BDST: 1616 HRS, AUG 19, 2015
AKA/SMS