Investigators permitted to check photos

Law enforcers will analyse the photographs, in which Hasnat Karim and Tahmid Hasib are seen along with one of the Gulshan attackers, published in different dailies last week.

On Thursday, a Dhaka court allowed police to collect the original photographs from the news outlets, said Monirul Islam, the chief of counterterrorism unit of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), yesterday.

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Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Sadbir Yeasir Ahsan Chowdhury passed the order a day after Detective Branch of police Inspector Humayan Kabir, also the investigation officer of the case, submitted an appeal before the court.

“We got the permission to examine the photos at a forensic lab to find out their authenticity,” Monirul said at a briefing at the DMP media centre.

Experts will also scrutinise the body language of Hasnat, a former private university teacher, and Tahmid, a Canadian university student, seen in the photos to ascertain whether they were hostages or attackers.

They were also working to know about the source of the photographs, he added.

In the photographs, Hasnat and Tahmid are seen standing with an attacker, apparently Rohan Imtiaz, on the rooftop of the Holey Artisan Bakery. Tahmid was apparently holding a firearm.

Rohan was later killed along with the other attackers in a rescue operation by army commandos.

Hours after the newspapers published the photos on Sunday, police started to scrutinise them, said police sources.

Meanwhile, a leading investigator dealing with the Gulshan terror attack said Hasnat and Tahmid might be produced before a Dhaka court today on completion of their eight-day remand.