One of 3 youths in new 'IS video' 'identified' as former Bangladesh election commissioner's son

One of the three Bangla-speaking youths who threatened more attacks on Bangladesh in a new video reportedly released by the Islamic State (IS) has been identified as the son of a former election commissioner by people who know him.

They said on the social media that the first of the three youths is Tahmid Rahman Shafi, son of Shafiur Rahman who died in 2014.

Some on Facebook said Shafi was one of the top 15 amateur singers in the first edition of reality television programme CloseUp1. They also shared a video of Shafi singing a well-known song — 'Mon Shudhu Mon Chuyechhe'— in the competition.

One Nirjhar Majumder wrote on Facebook, "Shafi, one of the youths in the ISIS video that made headlines today, had worked in Grameenphone."

Police or security agencies are yet to confirm his identity.

Two of his old friends have also confirmed to bdnews24.com that Shafi was their classmate in Dhaka's Notre Dame College. They were students of business studies in the 2000-2001 session.

They said Shafi had got himself admitted to BRAC University to study BBA after completing his HSC in 2002.

One of the armed youths who raided and seized the Holey Artisan Bakery and O' Kitchen restaurant on Friday night and killed 20 people, including 17 foreigners, was also a student of the same university.

The Middle East-based IS reportedly claimed credit for the terror attack, but police said the militants killed during a rescue operation the next morning were operatives of the banned militant group JMB.

Several former colleagues of Tahmid Rahman Shafi at Grameenphone said he had briefly worked for the mobile-phone operator.

One of the sons and a granddaughter of executed 1971 war criminals and top Jamaat-e-Islami leaders Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid and Motiur Rahman Nizami, respectively, had also worked in sensitive departments of Grameenphone.

Some of their colleagues, asking not to be named, said many people who have ties to different fundamentalist political parties still work in different sections of the operator. The issue has also been raised in different blogs.

Aman Ashraf Faiz, son of late Muslim League leader Syeda Razia Faiz who served as a minister under Gen Ershad and was known for collaborating with the Pakistani army during Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971, had also worked as a deputy director at Grameenphone's marketing division.

He is now the CEO of private station Gazi TV.

Several of Shafi's former classmates and colleagues confirmed that the youth's father was late election commissioner Shafiur Rahman.

A senior assistant secretary to Election Commission told bdnews24.com that Rahman served as an election commissioner from 2000 to 2005. His name can be found on the list of commissioners on the EC website.

The secretary, who worked as Rahman's personal assistant at that time, said Rahman had a son going by the name of Tahmid Rahman Shafi.

Some of Shafi's former classmates said they had last met him nearly three years ago.

"When we felt that his behaviour changed and he was leaning towards (militancy)... communication between him and the friends gradually lost," said one of them.

The EC official said late Shafiur Rahman's family lived in the capital's Nikunja residential area. But the official did not know the address.

After joining civil service in the Pakistan era, Rahman also worked in the home and public administration ministries as a secretary.

He died at the age of 75 on Aug 18, 2014.

The new reported IS video surfaced on Wednesday, four days after Bangladesh’s deadliest terror attack.

The video started with the militant group's propaganda messages, with subtitles in Bangla and Arabic, and boasted of death tolls from numerous terror attacks claimed by it.

“The jihad in Bangladesh, the one you are witnessing now, is nothing like anything you have seen before,” said the first of the three Bangla-speaking youths, who people are now saying is Tahmid Rahman Shafi, in his ‘message’ for the Bangladesh government.

He then spoke in English for the ‘Christian and Jewish crusaders and their allies’ to say their leader 'Sheikh Adnani' was not joking when he asked them to wage a war.

Then he said, “What you witnessed in Bangladesh yesterday was just a glimpse, this will repeat, repeat and repeat until you lose and we win ...”