Radicalised by expat

Neo JMB leader Maynul Islam's attitude changed after he met Faisal, an expatriate from Bahrain, said his mother Sufia Biwi.

Last year, Maynul, codenamed Musa, took Sufia to his Uttara residence in the capital where she saw Faisal and Maj Jahid, the alleged trainer of Gulshan and Sholakia attackers. The two used to frequent the house.

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Maynul often told his mother to stay with him, but she didn't.

The doors and windows were closed all the time. “I could not breathe and so I could not stay,” said the 50-year old.

Whenever she told her son to leave the company of Faisal and Jahid, Maynul said they were good people who said their prayers regularly.

Maynul has become a key leader of pro-Islamic State group “Neo JMB” following the killing of its top leaders, including Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, Maj (retd) Jahid and Tanvir Kaderi in separate operations in the capital and Narayanganj, according to the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police. 

“He told me that he would go to Bahrain with Faisal for job,” said Sufia by phone.

Just four months after the death of his father Abul Kalam Azad in December last year, he went to his village home in Buzrukkola of Gonipur union, Rajshahi. 

There he stayed for a few days to sell off six decimals of land in haste, which he had inherited. He took the money -- Tk 3 lakh -- with him and told his mother that he was preparing to go to Bahrain.  

Maynul passed his Secondary School Certificate exams from Mochmoil High School, Higher Secondary from Taherpur College in Bagmara upazila of Rajshahi and got admission into Rajshahi Government College in the English department. One year later, he came to Dhaka, Sufia said.

Maynul completed his master's in English from Dhaka College in 2014 and started working as a teacher at Life School in Uttara. Faisal also worked there. Maynul's monthly salary was Tk 14,000. He used to give private tuitions as well.

He married his distant cousin Trisha Moni that same year and began living together at the Uttara house.

According to Maynul's mother, Faisal went to Bahrain.

Sufia said her son stopped all communication with her in April after he left the village with the money he got from selling the land.

Maynul's elder stepbrother Khairul Islam said Mainul's mother has been living separately with her daughter after their properties were divided among the siblings.

The sudden rise in Mainul's financial condition in recent years amazed many people of Buzrukkola village.

“He had almost nothing. Suddenly a year ago I saw him riding on a 150cc motorcycle and he started behaving like a rich man,” said a villager preferring anonymity.

His response to the looks of surprise was, “I do a good job in Dhaka”.

Maynul's father Abul Kalam Azad lived on farming. At the same time, he worked as an imam and muezzin of a local mosque. Maynul was a well-mannered boy in the village and often worked as muezzin in the absence of his father.

“When Maynul left the village after passing HSC, he had no beard. But I saw him with long beard, white cap and in white dresses like typical maolanas when he was back in the village a year ago,” said a college teacher.

CONNECTION WITH JAHID, TAMIM

Tamim coordinated the July 1 Gulshan café attack that killed 22 people, mostly foreigners, while Jahid trained the five attackers, according to police. 

Maynul was a neighbour of Jahid in an apartment building at sector-13 in Uttara from January last year to February this year.

He had close family ties with Tanvir Kaderi, the father of twin Afif and Tahrim Kaderi.

Tahrim was taken into custody following a raid in September in Azimpur. He is still in jail. Afif, according to police, died during Saturday's raid on a militants' den at Ashkona, Dhaka. 

Mainul used to tutor Afif and Tahrim maths, English and science.

Tanvir moved to Pallabi from Uttara before renting the Bashundhara house from where the Gulshan café attack was coordinated, according to the confessional statement of Tahrim.

Maynul used to visit Tanvir's Pallabi home and shared organisational plans with Afif, police said.