Fund collection was the target

Jasim Uddin

The grisly Ashulia bank heist was aimed at collecting funds for militant activities of Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) and 10 operatives of the outfit carried out the robbery-turned-bloodbath.

They killed a guard, looted around Tk 7 lakh from the cash counters and then went on to kill the manager of Bangladesh Commerce Bank Ltd's Kathgora branch to take hold of the vault key.

However, they had to abort it midway as someone announced the heist news on the loudspeaker of a nearby mosque.

Police yesterday made the "revelations" after arresting Jasim Uddin alias Asad, a key member of the gang, from Manikganj's Daulatpur in the early hours.

It was the seventh arrest made in connection with the heist that claimed nine lives including a robber's on April 21.

Claiming that they have "unearthed the mystery behind the heist", Khandakar Golam Faruque, additional deputy inspector general (Dhaka range) of police, told pressmen at a briefing at the media centre of Dhaka Metropolitan Police that the heist was carried out apparently to collect funds for militant acts.

"We suspect that they are members of the Ansarullah Bangla Team," he said.

The arrestees follow Mufti Jasimuddin Rahmani, the so-called spiritual leader of the ABT, said the police official, adding that they also found books authored by Rahmani while raiding the arrestees' houses.

Rahmani is now in jail in connection with the killing of blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider.Jasim was arrested from a relative's house around 3:00am yesterday. When he was paraded before the media around 2:45pm, he was walking with crutches.

The additional DIG claimed Jasim was shot in the leg by his cohorts while escaping after the heist and also sustained splinter injuries from the blasts they had carried out.

When journalists asked Jasim why he had participated in the robbery, he said: "I did this for the sake of religion."

It was he who stabbed the manager inside the bank and an elderly outside while locals were chasing the robbers, he said.

He fled on a CNG-run auto-rickshaw and went to his in-law's house in Savar's Ashulia. After a couple of days there, Jasim, who hails from Kodalkathi village in Chapainawabganj, hid himself at another relative's house in Manikganj. This is the house he was caught from.

Police official Golam Faruque said Jasim was recruited by Abdullah Al Baki alias Mahfuz alias Hafiz of Sherpur. Mahfuz led the heist and another operative only known as Suman was his second-in-command. Both Mahfuz and Suman were on the run.

Quoting locals, Chapainawabganj police said Jasim had scarcely been in his village for the last five or six years, so, the villagers hardly had any idea about his recent activities.

Meanwhile, Jasim gave a confessional statement before a Dhaka court yesterday. He confessed to his involvement in the bank heist and also stabbing of the bank manager, said a police official involved in the investigation.