A travel organization helped three Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). A select few who came here with a task to attack the US embassy and Indian High Commission in Dhaka to obtain fake Bangladeshi passports, said detective branch officials.
According to DB, banned Islamic outfit Harkatul Jihad al Islami (Huji) members were assigned to carry out the procedure on commands of these LeT leaders. Both the organizations work jointly for ideological similarities.
DB officials believe that the travel agency has links with militant organizations as it assisted the LeT men attain passports and hajj visas.
Requesting anonymity, a senior DB official drawn in the investigation said, “We suspect that there are one or two travel agencies which work for militant outfits.”
“Hajj visas were managed so that soon after carrying out the mission the men could leave the country as pilgrims,” said the DB official, adding that, “Though they failed to make the attack before hajj, their mission is still on.”
He said, “We are waiting to take action against the travel agency. But first, we are trying to net the Pakistani nationals and their Bangladeshi cohorts who are still at large.”
An additional senior DB official said, “We have acknowledged some Bangladeshi people, as well as Huji men, involved in the attack-attempt. The LeT men came to Dhaka to directly instruct the militants here on how to carry out the operation.”
Assistant Commissioner (AC) of DB Sanwar Hossain, who led the drive to arrest Mufti Harun and his acquaintances Shahidul Alam and Al Amin alias Saiful in relation with scheming the attack, said DB has precise information and confirmation that the suspects, with the foreigners, regularly visit Jama’atul Ulum Madrasa at Lalkhan Bazar in Chittagong.
Mufti Harun is a son of Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ) faction chief Mufti Izaharul Islam Chowdhury who is well-known in the madrasa on a hilltop.
Harun and his two acquaintances are now on a fresh three-day remand.
Conversations with The Daily Star, AC Sanwar Hossain said, “We believe that the LeT leaders did not come to Bangladesh directly from Pakistan. They arrived via Dubai and London to avoid the intelligence workforce.”
AC Sanwar also said they have verification not in favor of Harun having secure link with another Pakistani LeT leader Saiyeed and that he traveled to at least another four Middle East countries.
DB found indications of money transaction in the account of Faizur Rahman, younger brother of detained Harun.
Mufti Harun and his two acquaintances were under arrest on November 4 following the arrests of David Coleman Headley alias Gilani Daud, an Indian born US citizen, and Tahawur Hussain Rana, a Pakistan born Canadian citizen, on October 3 in Chicago and Abdur Rahman Saiyeed in Pakistan last week.
The US authorities have charged them with plotting terror attacks overseas, as well as on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of Prophet Mohammad (Pbuh) in 2005.
