Dhaka cafe attack 'bomb supplier' Soheil headed JMB's West Bengal unit: Police

Militant Soheil Mahfuz, who is claimed to be one of the masterminds of the Dhaka cafe attack, headed the JMB unit based in India's West Bengal State, according to police.

Mahfuz was arrested early on Saturday with three other suspected militants from the northern district of Chapainawabganj.

Police have been looking for Mahfuz since the July 2016 attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery, when terrorist killed 20 diners, including 17 foreigners.

Two police officers were killed in grenade blasts while responding to the attack in Dhaka's diplomatic zone of Gulshan.

Bangladesh investigators say that Mahfuz supplied the grenades. He is also a suspect in the 2014 blast in West Bengal's Burdwan town.

West Bengal police detonate the bombs found at house in Burdwan. Photo: The Telegraph

 

A senior counterterrorism officer said Mahfuz used the alias Nasrullah, who the Indian police identified as one of the key suspects in the Burdwan blast, which left two killed.

"He was in India from 2009 to 2014 and was the chief of the JMB unit there. He used the alias Nasrullah," Additional Deputy Commissioner Abdul Mannan told bdnews24.com. "India's National Investigation Agency identified Nasrullah as the prime suspect of the blast."

Mahfuz, who hails from the western Bangladesh district of Kushtia, used to go by several other aliases like Shahadat and Rimon, according to police.

He was also known as Hatkata Soheil after losing of his right wrist. 

"In 2005, he lost one of his wrists in an explosion while making bombs in Naogaon," said counterterrorism officer Mannan.

Mahfuz was an executive member of the JMB and later joined neo-JMB, according to counterterrorism unit chief Monirul Islam.

"After being off the radar for quite some time, he joined the neo-JMB about two years ago, according to our intelligence," Islam had told the media.