The banned Islamic outfit Jamaatul Mujahidden chief Shaikh Abdur Rahman, during his second-term interrogation, on Sunday said they had hired some local goons to carry out the August 17 blasts to hide the identities of their operatives from lawmen.(The New Age BD) He was arrested from a house in Sylhet in the morning on March 2. He has been giving important information on the countrywide series of blasts on August 17, 2005, said sources in the task force, a combine of intelligence agencies and the Rapid Action Battalion.‘We carried out the blasts in some districts by hired goons to hide the identities of our operatives from law enforcers,’ a source in the task force quoted Adbur Rahman as saying. He said they handed over the charge of blasts to their divisional and districts commanders, who were directed by his younger brother Ataur Rahman, also military commander of the outfit, and his son-in-law Abdul Awal. ‘As we tried to establish Islamic rule by launching suicide attacks at key installations by our own operatives, we did not want that some of our operatives would go in hiding after the blasts. So we decided to carry out the attack by some hired goons at some places,’ an official of the battalion’s intelligence wing quoted him Sunday night as saying.
Investigators said Rahman said his operatives had carried out the blasts by some rickshaw pullers giving them Tk 350 to Tk 500 in CoxÂ’s Bazar, Khagrachari and Brahmanbaria on August 17, but they did not have the idea of Jamaatul Mujahideen. Rahman proudly said his operative were capable of getting things done by others without giving them an idea of the outfit.
Two young men Mohammad Shohel and Alamgir Hossain, now in custody, meanwhile told the magistrate on Saturday that they had carried out the attacks on August 17 for money in Brahmanbaria. They made statements to Magistrate Habibur Rahman, saying that Sabbir Ahmed Dulal of the outfit distributed money among 11 persons. The attack was planned at a meeting at the Kazipara Eidgah a day before the incident. The police said the two agreed to make statements before the magistrate on the third day of their five-day remand.