DHAKA: A key suspect involved in planning Bangladesh's worst terror attack on a popular cafe was today arrested, becoming the sixth militant to be taken into custody, police said.
Aslam Hossain Rashed alias Rash, was reportedly a coordinator and one of the key planners of Holey Artisan Bakery attack in the upmarket Gulshan area in which 22 people, including an Indian woman, were killed.
He belongs to the Islamic State-inclined Neo-Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (Neo-JMB), the Dhaka Tribune reported.
Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) and a team from police headquarters conducted search operations in Natore and Bogra in northern Bangladesh to arrest Rashed.
"We are bringing Rashed from Natore to Dhaka. He will be taken to court and shown arrested in the cafe attack case," Monirul Islam, the head of police's counterterrorism unit, said.
"Rash was a close associate to Tamim Chowdhury, the Bangladeshi-Canadian who headed the Neo-JMB, before being shot dead in a police raid following the cafe attack," he said.
Rashed became the six militant to be taken into custody.
The militants who were previously arrested were – Sohel Mahfuz, Basharuzzaman, Mizanur Rahman, Hadisur Rahman Sagor, Rashedul Islam.
Bangladesh witnessed its worst terror attack when five gunmen stormed the upscale Holey Artisan Bakery and O'Kitchen inside Dhaka's diplomatic district on July 1 last year