THE STAR
PETALING JAYA: A second suspected Bangladeshi militant in the recent Dhaka attack is said to have studied at the same Malaysian private university as his friend Nibras Islam.
The duo have been identified by social media users and Bangladeshi press to have been part of the group that killed 22 people in last Friday’s terror attack.
A former student of Monash University Malaysia, calling himself Omar, said Nibras had come with one Rohan Imtiaz to study at Monash University in 2012.
According to Bangladeshi English newspaper The Daily Star, Rohan had “also attended Monash University” after a stint at an elite secondary school back home.
The report indicated that Rohan might be the son of a senior Bangladeshi politician.
Bangladeshi authorities have yet to officially release all the images and full names of the attackers.
In a report by the New Delhi-based NDTV, Rohan’s relatives claimed that he was not pictured among the bodies of the alleged terrorists.
The photo was released by Bangladeshi police.
However, social media users have linked Rohan’s image to another that was released by terror-monitoring group SITE Intelligence, which depicted five youths bearing arms and standing in front of an Islamic State flag.
They were said to be the Dhaka gunmen.
Like the other suspects, Rohan vanished months before the attack.
A missing person’s report was lodged by his father on Jan 1.
Last Friday night, seven so-called IS militants killed 22 people, including two police officers, at Dhaka’s Holey Artisan Bakery, an upscale Western-style cafe popular among foreigners.
The militants hacked most of their victims with machetes and left their bleeding bodies on the floor.
Six of them were shot dead by security forces during a siege.
One was taken alive and is being interrogated by Bangladeshi authorities.
Nibras purportedly studied commerce at Monash University Malaysia, according to social media users.
Various undated images of Nibras in Malaysia are available online – at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport with friends and posing outside a waterpark in Selangor.
A Facebook selfie of Nibras and an unidentified friend dated Jan 12 is also circulating online.
The location tagged in the image was an expensive coffee shop in Gulshan district, the same neighbourhood where Friday’s attack took place.
A video of Nibras conversing with friends also showed him speaking English fluently.
Nibras’ Facebook page has been deactivated while his Instagram account has been set to private.
