Staff Reporter:In reference to the latest claim of so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria's existence in Bangladesh, Inspector General of Police on Monday maintained that there is no existence of the terrorist outfit in the country.
IGP AKM Shahidul Hoque was addressing at a conference titled Chiefs of Police Conference of South Asia and Neighbouring Countries on Regional Cooperation in Curbing Violent Extremism and Transnational Crime which opened in Dhaka on Sunday.
At the opening day of the same meeting, Rohan Gunaratna, Director of International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), said, IS attacked at Holey Artisan Bakery, not local militants, he said. Mr, Gunaratna cited ICPVTR's 'research' on the topic.
What we call militants are actually homegrown who might have been embodied with IS philosophy and ideology. But they dont have any link with the IS..
Rohan is not a police officer, nor a military officer. He does not deal with any security issue. He is an academician, a professor of a university. He has done his academic research on his own. But he does not have experience of the real issue of Bangladesh, said AKM Shahidul Hoque on Monday.
Many people of the group were arrested and in our custody. Not a single of them claimed to be the members of IS. Even the family members of the slain militants did not say they are IS members, the IGP said. None of them have taken training from IS, he said adding that they might have followed the ideology of IS and footprints in the virtual world, especially through social media.
The IGP further said, IS claimed the credit of the Gulshan attack. Many [militants] of them were killed in operations following the incident but IS did not claim that those militants are members of IS, he added. What Mr. Rohan said is his own statement. We dont endorse his statement, the IGP said.