Since February 3, police have been looking for a 24-year-old youth who left home on that day and didn’t come back.
His father filed a general diary with Dhanmondi Police Station the day he went missing, mentioning that his son left home for having lunch with his friends, and didn’t return.
Six days later, the name of the missing youth, Tawsif Hossain, came up in the statements of some suspected militants held by Shahbagh police.
The July 1 Holey Artisan terror attack, once again, brought him to police attention as his disappearance is now found to be linked with that of Nibras Islam, one of the five attackers killed in commando operation during the Gulshan siege.
With law enforcers making efforts to track him down, startling information about Tawsif is now coming out.
Police now say that Tawsif is a close friend of Nibras. He went missing on February 3, the day Nibras went missing, and they both studied at the same institution in Malaysia — Monash University.
Nibras is one of the accused in the case filed with Shahbagh Police Station under the Anti-terrorism Act on February 9 for planning subversive activities. And the name of one Tawsif was mentioned in the first information report.
“We think this Tawsif is indeed the missing Tawsif as they [Nibras and Tawsif] were close friends and went missing on the same day,” Noor-a-Azam Miah, officer in charge of Dhanmondi Police Station, told the reporters yesterday.
Referring to the general diary filed by Tawsif’s father, the OC said Tawsif, son of Ajmal Hossain and Farida Hossain in the capital’s Dhanmondi, is a student of Monash University in Malaysia. The boy returned to Bangladesh from the Southeast Asian country with Nibras on November 3 last year.
Nibras, also a student of the Malaysian university, disappeared in early February after his return. It was found later that Nibras had lived in Jhenidah for around four months and left the place only a couple of days before the bloody Gulshan siege on July 1.
Tawsif passed from an English-medium school in the capital and got admitted to the Malaysian university in 2011, the OC said.
His father Ajmal, a physician by profession, spent 10 years in Saudi Arabia before returning to Bangladesh a few years ago, he said.
Around noon on February 3, Tawsif left home with a bag telling his mother that he was going out to have lunch with friends, according to Noor-a-Azam.
Quoting Tawsif’s family, Inspector Helal Uddin of the same police station said, “While leaving, Tawsif mentioned Nibras’ name as one of his friends with whom he would have lunch.”
As Tawsif, the youngest among his three siblings, didn’t return home at night, his family called Nibras’ grandfather and learnt that Nibras also didn’t return home, said the OC adding that they later came to know that Nibras also went missing on February 3.
Tawsif’s family members searched the house and found his passport missing, the OC said.
Ajmal, who is from Ramchandrapur village in Rajshahi, filed the GD with Dhanmondi Police Station on that night.
The OC said they also informed all police stations across the country about Tawsif.
When Nibras’ name cropped up following the Gulshan attack, police visited Tawsif’s house to get more information about him.
“We now suspect that he may have been involved in militancy,” added the OC.
On February 9, Abul Bashar, sub-inspector of Detective Branch (South) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, filed a case against 12 people with Shahbagh Police Station under anti-terrorism act for conspiring to commit subversive activities.
On that day, police conducted a drive in Shahbagh area on information that some suspected militants were plotting to carry out subversive activities there, according to the case document.
Police arrested three alleged militants from the spot. Police learnt from them that their nine accomplices managed to escape, it reads.
In the case document, the names of Nibras and Tawsif were mentioned as fugitives but their addresses were not mentioned.
SM Raisul Islam, investigation officer of the case, told this correspondent yesterday that through media reports, he came to know about the links between Nibras and Tawsif and the filling of the GD by his father.
“I have contacted Dhanmondi Police and hope to get a copy of the GD soon. Once I receive the copy, it will be possible to tell whether the accused Tawsif is indeed the missing youth by the same name,” he said.
During interrogation, the three arrestees didn’t give addresses of the fugitives, said Raisul adding that they were released on bail from the High Court.
The three are Raiyan Minhaj alias Raiyu alis Armin, 24, Ahmed Shammur Raihan alias Chiller, 23, and Touhid Bin Ahmed alias Riaz alias Kachchi, 24.
Raiyan and Touhid were granted a six-month ad-interim bail each on March 29 and April 10, while Shammur was given a three-month bail on April 19, said sources at Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court which is dealing with the case.
