PM's residence was the target

Biman Bangladesh Airlines Co-pilot Sabbir Emam Sabbir had planned either to hit the residence of the prime minister with an aircraft or take a plane along with passengers to the IS base in Syria, a Rab official told a Dhaka court yesterday.

Investigation officer Sub-Inspector Amirul Islam of Rab-4 made the claim in the remand prayer for First Officer Sabbir, who was suspended following his arrest. Later, the court placed the accused on a seven-day remand.

During yesterday's hearing, the 31-year-old refuted the allegation and claimed that he was innocent.

Sabbir said he had been working at Biman since 2015 and he operated his last flight on October 30. “There was no complaint against me during my service. And all of a sudden, I was detained on the night of October 30 over militant links."

He also claimed that he did not even visit his parents' house, raided by the Rab on September 4-8, in the last five years except for one day after the arrest of his father.

"How come they [Rab] said I went to my Darussalam home and met Abdullah," he said.

The Rab arrested Sabbir, his mother Sultana Parvin, their relative Asifur Rahman Asif, and local tea stall owner Alam after raiding several places of Mirpur on Tuesday. According to the force, the four had close links with Abdullah, an alleged JMB leader.

Sabbir is the son of Habibullah Bahar Azad, the owner of the building in the capital's Darussalam area. During the Rab operation, Abdullah alias Meer Akrabul Karim was killed along with his two wives, two children and two of his associates in massive explosions inside their flat. The Rab claimed those were suicide blasts. Habibullah was arrested during the drive.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Mufti Mahmud Khan, director (legal and media wing) of Rab claimed that Sabbir had been planning either to carry out a suicide attack on the houses of government high-ups with an aircraft or kidnap passengers of an aircraft and take it to a country in the Middle East.

The Rab official did not give details of the alleged plans. He claimed that they came to know about the plans made by Sabbir along with Abdullah and Sarwar Jahan before and after the Gulshan Café attack last year.

Sarwar Jahan, a suspected JMB man, died after he jumped off a five-storey building during a Rab raid in Ashulia on the outskirts of the capital on October 8 last year.

The Rab official also claimed that they came to know about Sabbir from suspected militant Billal Hossain, who was arrested in Narayanganj on October 26.

Although Rab claimed that Abdullah was a top leader of Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), DMP's counterterrorism sources said the man, widely known as Kabutar Abdullah, had cut ties with the banned militant outfit.

Wishing anonymity, a CTTC official yesterday said, “We had information about Abdullah, but we never raided his house as we were told that he had severed all his ties with the JMB.”

Sabbir's mother Sultana had claimed that Abdullah was a tenant at their house for 12 years and to her he was merely a tenant like others.

“We came to know Abdullah's links with militancy only after the Rab raid,” she told the court.

REMAND

During yesterday's hearing, the Dhaka court placed Sabbir's mother Sultana Parvin and four others on remand for different durations.

The court passed the order after Rab produced them with a 10-day remand prayer each in the case filed over the raid on the building in Darussalam.

Sultana was placed on a five-day remand. Police were permitted to have Asif and Alam on remand for six days each.

The two others placed on remand were Shahadat Hossain alias Amir Hamza and Sammrat Mia, alleged members of Sarwar-Tamim faction of the JMB. They were arrested on September 4 in Kalihati of Tangail.

SABBIR SUSPENDED

Biman Bangladesh Airlines suspended Sabbir hours after Rab arrested him on Tuesday on militancy charges.

“First Officer Sabbir Emam Sabbir has been suspended over his alleged militancy links,” Biman's General Manager (public relations) Shakil Meraj told The Daily Star yesterday.