Police failed to arrest 10 Neo Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) leaders and master mind of terror attack Holey Artisan Bakery though four months are over of the attack.
At least 33 banned militant outfit members have so far been killed in joint operations of the law enforcement agencies since Army action against militants in Gulshan's Holey Artisan Bakery on July 2.
The July 1 attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery left 22 people including an Indian girl and two police officers dead, while the July 6 assault on an Eid congregation in northern Sholakia killed two policemen and a woman.
Police yet not confirmed neo-JMB kingpins Maj (sacked) Syed Mohammad Ziaul Haque and Nurul Islam Marjan, a student of Chittagong University, Basarullah, Ripon, Khalad, Boro bhai Mizan, Rajib Ghandi, and Junayad among 10 Neo JMB leaders.
Four different courts in Dhaka on Sunday recorded statements of four witnesses separately in the case of the gruesome attack on a Gulshan restaurant that left 22 dead, mostly foreigners, on July 1.
Meanwhile, investigators of Dhaka Metropolitan Police claimed that they had already identified the masterminds and plotters of the attack but no one was arrested in the case.
The Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crimes unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police interrogated several people in connection with attack.
Humayun is the investigation officer of the case lodged with the Gulshan police station. The witnesses are the cashier of the restaurant Holey Artisan Bakery Al-Amin Chowdhury, the restaurant's two staff - Miraz Hossain and Russell Mahmud, and Metro Rail project's driver Baset Sarder.
The case was filed against the five extremist attackers, one suspected attacker, and several other extremist suspects under the Anti-Terrorism Act on July 4, three days after the gruesome attack.
The government and officials of top law enforcing agency, however, have been claiming that the crime was committed by homegrown extremists, mainly by the banned Islamist outfit Jammatul Mujahedin Bangladesh.
Sources in the Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of the metropolitan police said they had been investigating the case and suspected that the new JMB leader and a Canadian expatriate Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury masterminded the attack. Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury was killed during a police raid in Narayanganj.
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Md Asaduzzaman Mia on several occasions claimed that they had already identified the plotters and masterminds of the attack.
A senior officer of the CTTC, saying the new outfit, mostly led by close relatives of the original outfit, adopted a revised philosophy for the outfit three years ago which was inclined to that of IS.
Independent security analysts earlier said JMB or neo-JMB was inclined to IS while another banned outfit called Ansarullah Bangla Team was ideologically linked to al-Qaeda.
India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) says it is working on leads that suggest Pakistani gunsmiths helped produce the semiautomatic AK-22 rifles used in the Jul 1 Gulshan cafe attack in a clandestine factory in West Bengal. NIA officials said one of the six Jamaa'tul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) operatives arrested in West Bengal in September has told them during interrogation.
