Former East Pakistan governor Monem Khan’s grandson among ‘terrorists’ killed in Dhaka

The grandson of Abdul Monem Khan, who was steadfast in his allegiance to Pakistan and had opposed the creation of Bangladesh, has been found to be among those killed in Tuesday’s police raid on a militant hideout in Dhaka’s Kalyanpur.

Police’s counterterrorism unit chief Monirul Islam told reporters on Thursday that 24-year-old Aqifuzzaman Khan, was the grandson of Monem Khan, the governor of erstwhile East Pakistan killed by the freedom fighters during the Liberation War.

Police claim all the nine killed in Tuesday’s operation in ‘Taj Manzil’ that followed the Gulshan and Sholakia terrorist attacks were members of the Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).

The discovery of Monem Khan’s grandson among the slain ‘terrorists’ lends weight to claims made by Awami League leaders that the defeated forces of 1971 and 1975 are behind terrorist activities.

However, an Awami League leader’s son was among terrorists killed in Gulshan cafe attack.

Monem Khan, who hailed from Bajitpur in Kishoreganj, was an important Muslim League leader.

In 1962, he became the governor of erstwhile East Pakistan and was Ayub Khan’s henchman entrusted with the job of suppressing the Bengali movement for self-determination.

He was shot dead by Muktibahini fighters at his Banani residence in Dhaka on Oct 13, 1971.

“Aqifuzzaman is the son of Monem Khan’s youngest son,” someone who knows the family well told bdnews24.com

He was a student of North South University like some of those involved in the Gulshan and Sholakia attacks.

Bangladeshi-American Shehzad Rouf Arka alias Morocco and Taj-ul-Haque Rashik, who were killed with Aqifuzzaman on Tuesday, were also students of the private university.

A day after they were killed, police said the identities of seven, including Aqifuzzaman’s, had been established by matching their fingerprints with their NID cards.

Taj-ul-Haque Rashik

On Thursday, police said they had also identified another slain man as ‘Raihan’.

According to information given out by police, Aqifuzzaman was the son of Saifuzzaman Khan, living in house No. 25 on Road No. 10 in Gulshan.

For a while, no-one had responded to door bell on Thursday morning. A woman finally opened the door of the two-storey building. “What can I say in such circumstances,” was her brief reaction.

The visibly irritated woman had mumbled a few things standing 10 feet away but it was hard to understand what she said.