Bangladesh identifies its own in IS video: Son of former poll panel chief, dentist, MBA student

Within hours of the video being uploaded, friends and acquaintances started identifying them on social media. One of them has been identified as Arafat ‘Tushar’ al-Azad, married to fellow dentist and model Naila Nayem.

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In April 2015, The Indian Express reported that Arafat called Naila in February to tell her he had to leave for Turkey on unexpected business, and didn’t know when he would return. Naila, who declined to be interviewed, told police there had been no contact with him ever since.

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Son of Major Washikur Azad, Arafat attended Adamjee Cantonment Public School and RAJUK Uttara Model College. His house is at Baridhara DOHS in Dhaka, one of the prominent localities adjoining Gulshan. Friends said he was a table tennis regular.

The second person to be identified in the video is Tahmid Rahman Shafi, son of Shafiur Rahman who was election commissioner from 2000 to 2005. Rahman, who also served as secretary in the home and public administration ministries, died in 2014.

Shafi was one of the top 15 amateur singers in the first edition of reality TV programme CloseUp1, aired on NTV. A video of Shafi singing ‘Mon Shudhu Mon Chuyechhe’ during the competition has gone viral on Bangladesh social media.

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He was said to have once worked with Grameenphone, one of the telecom operators in the country. Bangladesh media reported that Shafi studied at Notre Dame College in Dhaka, and that he had taken admission in BRAC University to study BBA. Rohan Imtiaz, one of the attackers at the Holey Artisan Bakery, was also a student of BRAC University.

PTI quoted bdnews24 as saying that the third youth in the video, who has his face covered, has been identified by sources as Tawsif Hossain, a former student of the Institute of Business Administration at Dhaka University. A student of the 18th batch of the institute, he left the university without completing the course.

Hossain had been arrested earlier on charges of his involvement with Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh. His family sent him to Austria later, but his friends said he was not there, the report said.