Wife, father-in-law and uncle of man suspected of detonating pipe bomb in subway corridor among those questioned

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Police in Bangladesh are interrogating relatives of the man who allegedly detonated a pipe bomb in a crowded New York subway corridor on Monday, including his wife.

Officers picked up Akayed Ullah’s wife, Jannatul Ferdous Jui, along with her parents from a neighbourhood in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, on Tuesday afternoon. They were released after being questioned for around four hours.

Other relatives, including Ullah’s uncle, were also being questioned on the small island off the south-east coast of Bangladesh where the alleged bomber was born and spent his childhood before moving to Dhaka and then to the US seven years ago. In all about a dozen of his relatives were interrogated on Tuesday.

Ullah was born in Musapur village on Sandwip, an island near the city of Chittagong, but moved away at a young age and no longer had any immediate relatives in the area, said Abul Khair Nadim, chairman of the local union.

“Akayed’s father, Sanaullah Mia, moved to the US along with his son in 2011,” Abul Khair Nadim told the Guardian in a phone interview. “Around a year later he died in the US.

“We don’t think that he was involved in any nefarious activity in the island. He has some distant relatives in the island. But they do not know much about Akayed,” he said.

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Before he was detained for questioning by police on Tuesday, Zulfiquar Haider, Ullah’s father-in-law, said the suspect had married his daughter on a visit to Bangladesh in January 2016. They gave birth to a child in June this year and Ullah had visited in September to see the baby, returning to the US on 22 October.

Haider, his wife and his daughter were picked up by counter-terrorism authorities in Dhaka while his uncle, Joynal Abedin, was being questioned on Sandwip island, the Daily Star of Bangladesh reported.



New York police alleged Ullah, 27, set off a homemade bomb strapped to his body in an underground pedestrian corridor between Times Square and the Port Authority Bus Terminal at rush hour. Four people were injured in the blast, including Ullah himself, in an attack said to have been “inspired” by Islamic State.

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Ullah lived with his mother, sister and two brothers in Brooklyn and was a green card holder, according to Shameem Ahsan, the consul general of Bangladesh in New York.

A cousin of the alleged bomber in Chittagong told reporters he was surprised his relative was being accused of committing the attack.

“My uncle [Ullah’s father] was a freedom fighter. He fought for the liberation of the country,” he said. “He ran a grocery story in Dhaka before moving to the US. It’s shocking to know his son launched the terror attack.”

He said the families had only maintained intermittent contact since Ullah moved to the US. A law enforcement official familiar with the investigation told Reuters that investigators had found evidence that Ullah watched Isis propaganda on the internet.

Bangladesh has strongly condemned the attack, saying in a statement: “A terrorist is a terrorist irrespective of his or her ethnicity or religion, and must be brought to justice.”

Islamists have claimed responsibility for a spate of machete killings targeting atheist bloggers, LBGTI activists and intellectuals in Bangladesh in recent years. Nearly 30 people were killed in July 2016 when militants stormed a Dhaka cafe and took hostages in an attack claimed by Isis, the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history.

Top government officials including the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, have denied that the militants had any direct connection to Isis and claim neither it nor al-Qaida has a significant presence in Bangladesh.

Analysts say the Muslim-majority country of 160 million people has seen an upsurge in jihadist activity in the past five years, blaming factors including the expansion of conservative Islamic institutions funded by Gulf donors and a bulging population of young men without fruitful employment or education prospects.



Policymakers have also been accused of indulging hardline Muslim sentiment for political gain, including by suggesting some victims of machete attacks had been “insulting Islam”.

Police have been conducting regular raids against alleged autonomous Islamist cells and militants in the 18 months since the Dhaka cafe attack.

The head of the country’s counter-terrorism unit, Monirul Islam, claimed recently the country’s terrorist network had been largely eliminated.

Shaikh Azizur Rahman contributed to the report from Kolkata

