Gulshan Cafe Attack: Tahmid freed on bail, cops find he'd no link

Tahmid Hasib Khan, who had been detained over the Gulshan café siege, was released on bail yesterday.

The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in Dhaka passed the bail order after a petition was moved by his lawyer. Also, police turned in a probe report with a prayer for relieving him of the accusation that he had involvement in the terror attack.  

In the prayer, police said they found no evidence of his links to the Gulshan attackers or any other militants.

The court fixed Wednesday for hearing on the report, submitted by Inspector Humayun Kabir of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of DMP. It was sent to the court's general recording section on September 28, sources said.

Jahangir Kabir, senior jail superintendent of Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj, told The Daily Star last night they released Tahmid at 10:15pm on completion of all formalities.

Tahmid, a Canadian university student, and Hasnat Karim, a former private university teacher in Bangladesh, were arrested on August 3 under section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), according to police. 

Section 54 says police can arrest any person on suspicion without any warrant. 

Police produced them before a Dhaka court on August 4 and sought 10 days' remand for each, but the court granted eight days. 

After the remand ended, police produced Hasnat before the court as an accused in the Gulshan attack case on August 13.

Though Hasnat, now in jail, was shown arrested in the case that day, Tahmid was kept detained under section 54.

While praying for their remand, police had said, “It appeared during primary interrogation that the said accused [Tahmid and Hasnat] instigated the militant attack.”

Police further said they needed to interrogate them “about patronising members of militant organisations, their connections with militant outfits and for arresting other terrorists”.

After their eight days' remand ended, the duo was taken on a fresh remand on August 13 as police claimed to have gleaned vital information during the previous remand.

This time, the court placed Tahmid on a six-day remand against a police prayer for seven days' while Hasnat was placed on an eight-day remand.

In the remand prayer for Tahmid, Inspector Humayun Kabir said, “He has given vital information about the incident and he needs to be remanded for seven days for interrogation.”

While Tahmid and Hasnat were on the first-round remand, some media outlets published several photos of Hasnat and Tahmid with one of the Gulshan attackers, apparently Rohan Imtiaz.   

In the photographs, “collected from unknown sources”, the trio was seen on the rooftop of the bakery. Tahmid was seen holding a small firearm.

On July 1, five militants stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery of Gulshan and held diners hostage at gunpoint.

They murdered 20 hostages -- nine Italian, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, one Indian and one Bangladesh-born US citizen -- and two police officers who tried to end the standoff soon after it began around 8:40pm.

Tahmid had gone to the restaurant with two female students of a private university.

Hasnat had gone there with his wife and two children for celebrating the birthday of one of his daughters, family members said.

Tahmid and Hasnat were taken in by detectives for interrogation immediately after the bloody siege ended on July 1.

Before August 4, when they were produced in a court for the first time, police kept claiming they had released Hasnat and Tahmid after questioning, but the families insisted that the two never returned home and could not be reached by any means.