Dhaka cafe attack: Four members of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen arrested in Bangladesh

Dhaka: Bangladesh security forces on Wednesday arrested four members of a faction of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JMB) for an attack on Gulshan cafe in Dhaka in July 2016.

The arrested were identified as Ashfaque-e-Azam alias Apple, Mahbubur Rahman, Shahinuzzaman and Ashraful Islam.

The July attack in Dhaka’s diplomatic quarter was claimed by Islamic State and was the worst militant attack in Bangladesh, which has been hit by a spate of killings of liberals and members of religious minorities in the past few years.

The four arrested were members of a faction of the JMB militant group, known as New JMB, which has pledged allegiance to ISIS and which police believe was involved in organising the cafe attack.

“One of them, was the IT head of the group,” Mufti Mahmud Khan, spokesman of the police-led Rapid Action Battalion, which is involved in counter-terrorism efforts.

Firearms, ammunitions and explosives were also seized in the house, including two pistols, 21 rounds of ammunition, four sharp weapons, gun powder and bomb-making materials.

Earlier in January, police nabbed a 35-year-old Neo-JMB terrorist Jahangir Alam alias Rajib Gandhi, one of the key figures behind the terror attack on the Gulshan cafe in July last year in which over 20 people, mostly foreigners were killed.

Rajib had close connections with Tamim, the mastermind of the cafe siege, who was killed last year.