‘Militant’ couple Tanvir-Fatema changed after Hajj in Saudi Arabia in 2014

Tanvir Qaderi, a former banker, was shot dead during an anti-militancy operation in Dhaka’s Azimpur while his wife Abedatul Fatema, an executive with an international organisation, was injured and captured.

Tajul Islam Reza and Golam Mujtaba Dhrubabdnews24.com
Published : 16 Sept 2016, 05:19 PM
Updated : 16 Sept 2016, 07:51 PM

bdnews24.com can reveal how the couple changed after performing Hajj in Saudi Arabia in 2014.

Fatema was among three suspected female militants held during the raid on their house in Azimpur on Sep 10.

The couple’s twin sons are eighth-grade students of Milestone College in Uttara.

Police say Tanvir was taking the charge of Neo-Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (Neo-JMB) as its coordinator after the terror outfit’s leader Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury was killed in a raid in Narayanganj last month.

He had rented a flat for the Gulshan cafe attackers under the name, Abdul Karim. He also used another alias, ‘Shamsed’.

Investigators did not speak about how the couple got involved in militancy, pointing out that the investigation was on-going.

Relatives in Tanvir’s village Batikamari in Gaibandha said his parents and others saw extremist religious views in him after he and his family had returned from Saudi Arabia.

Fatema also started wearing hijab at the time.

But the relatives did not know anything about their link to militancy.

Mohibul Islam, the DMP’s Deputy Commissioner for the counterterrorism unit, said they were interrogating Fatema and the two other female suspects at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

They trio had told police that some people had come to meet Tanvir several times after they rented the house in Azimpur sometime ago.

“We are trying to know who had met Tanvir and what they had discussed,” Mohibul said.

bdnews24.com has found in its investigations that Tanvir, son of SM Baten, passed SSC examinations from Gaibandha Government Boys’ High School in 1994 and HSC tests from Gaibandha Government College two years later.

He did Bachelor’s with Honours in accounting from Dhaka College and post-graduation from a private university.

He had worked in two private firms before joining Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited’s mobile-banking department.

But Tanvir left the job after returning from Saudi Arabia in 2014 and launched his own business – Al Sakina Home Delivery Service.

He married Fatema, daughter of banker Abdul Tawat from Brahmanbarhia, in 2001.

Fatema was working in Save the Children after graduating from Dhaka University.

Police said she was also involved in militancy. She and the two other female suspects attacked security personnel with pepper powder and knives during the raid, police say.

Mahmudur Rashid Rasel, a classmate of Tanvir in school, said he had spoken about his being unhappy with the religious practices in Bangladesh.

“Tanvir used to say religion is not exercised properly in Bangladesh,” Rasel said.

Another classmate, declining to be named, said Tanvir had been a supporter of Jamaat-e-Islami’s student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir.

Tanvir’s ancestors came from Pakistan. His grandfather, late Abdul Wahed, came to Gaibandha from Peshawar early in the 20th century and settled in the northern Bangladesh district after marriage.

Gaibandha Sadar Police Station OC Mehedi Hasan said Tanvir’s father Baten, his daughter Tanjila Bulbul and son-in-law Zia Islam were questioned at the station last Monday.

Baten had said he would not take his son’s body back, but now he has changed his mind, the OC says.

The father had told police he would take the decision about the burial later.

A former employee of erstwhile Telegraph and Telephone Department, Baten had been in the Middle East for several years. He now trades in chewing tobacco.