Bangladesh police claim finding second hideout of Gulshan cafe attackers in capital

Bangladesh police says they have found another hideout used by the Gulshan cafe attackers in the capital.

A Dhaka metro police spokesperson said that they had information that the perpetrators of the Jul 1 attack had used the house at Dhaka’s Mirpur.

“The owner, Nurul Islam, has been arrested. Police have found handmade grenade, black dresses and some other equipment from in the house,” Deputy Police Commissioner Masudur Rahman told bdnews24.com.

He added that the owner has been arrested for not heeding police’s instruction about collecting information about tenants while renting out houses or flats.

A Detective Branch officer told bdnews24.com that police raided the house at Mirpur’s Shewraparha on Saturday night.

Hours before the raid at Mirpur, police had arrested the acting Pro-Vice Chancellor of North South University Professor M Gias Uddin Ahsan and two others on same charges from Dhaka’s Bashundhara Residential Area.

The two others held are Ahsan’s nephew Alam Chowdhury, and Mahbubur Rahman Tuhin, the building manager.

Police said the five militants who carried out the attack on Gulshan cafe had taken shelter in a flat, owned by Ahsan, in the building .

Ahsan’s nephew Alam and manager Tuhin dealt with the renting of the flat.

Several cartons packed with sand and the dresses they left behind in the flat were seized.

Police suspect the cartons were used to keep the grenades used in the attack that killed 20 hostages and two police officers.

Police said a person, suspected to be a member of Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), had rented the flat in May.

“The man fled on the day of the Gulshan attack. It appears from the information we initially got that some of the Gulshan cafe attackers had come to this house,” Detective Branch Deputy Commissioner Saiful Islam told bdnews24.com on Saturday.