Her sister, Shoma, reportedly shouted the same thing when she allegedly stabbed Roger Singaravela, a nurse, in the neck after he accepted her into his Mill Park home as part of a home-stay placement for international students. Mr Singaravelu survived the attack. “We are suspecting that Asmaul was motivated into militancy by her elder sister Momena,” said Saiful Islam, Bangladesh’s Deputy Commissioner of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime. The report said the sisters were radicalised by watching militant videos online and on social media. “Both sisters got inspired to devote to jihad and vowed to fight for establishing an Islamic caliphate in Bangladesh,” it said. It is understood the sisters come from a respected Bangladeshi family that is aligned with the ruling secular party, the Awami League, which takes a strong anti-terror stance.

A family friend said it was very unusual Ms Shoma came to Melbourne by herself and that no one in the community had been told to look out for her.A spokeswoman for Australia's Department of Home Affairs said Ms Shoma was subjected to "all the usual checks" before she was granted a visa and no adverse findings were made.The Neo-JMB group is not listed as a terrorist organisation by the Australian government despite being an off-shoot of Bangladesh’s banned Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which was responsible for an attack on a bakery in Dhaka in 2016 that killed 29 people, including 18 foreign hostages. Five terrorists entered the bakery in the affluent suburb of Gulshan Thana with crude bombs and with machetes and held dozens of people hostage before butchering some. The dead included nine Italians and seven Japanese. Islamic State claimed responsibility and released photographs of the attackers but Bangladesh authorities accused home-grown militants of the massacre. Bangladeshis light candles and sing songs as they pay tribute to those killed in the attack at a cafe in Bangladesh blamed on Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh in 2016. Credit:AP

The Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh emerged when it carried out synchronised bomb explosions in 63 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts on August 17, 2005. Dozens of its militants were subsequently hanged. But the group re-emerged in 2013 with attacks on apostate bloggers, writers, online activists, Hindu and Christian priests, foreigners and members of the Shi'ite Islamic community across Bangladesh, where 90 per cent of the 170 million population are Muslims. Islamic State and al-Qaeda also claimed responsibility for some of the killings. Bangladesh intelligence agencies say JMB militants split into three factions several years ago over leadership rivalries, one of them re-surfacing as Neo-JMB.

Security officials in Dhaka say that unlike the original JMB, whose militants were mostly from rural poor backgrounds, the Neo-JMB faction has drawn recruits from upper middle class or rich families who were well educated and savvy with modern technology. Officials say Neo-JMB was founded by a Canadian-born man of Bangladeshi descent known as Tamin Chowdhury, who arrived in Bangladesh in 2013 and was killed in a police raid in August 2016. Chowdhury is believed to have masterminded the bakery attack. Neo-JMB adheres to Islamic State’s ideology and global strategy, officials say. Bangladesh media has quoted counter-terror agencies as estimating it has about 200 operatives.

Maulana Abdul Kashem, another spiritual leader of Neo-JMB who was arrested last year, made many speeches declaring the killing of foreigners is justified. Investigations into the Mill Park attack are likely to centre on Momena Shoma’s links to the Neo-JMB in Bangladesh. Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police say they cannot comment because the case is before the courts. Earlier police said Ms Shoma had been “self-radicalised” and that the Mill Park attack was Islamic State-inspired. Ms Shoma arrived in Melbourne on February 1 to study linguistics at La Trobe University, where she had been given a 25 per cent "excellence" scholarship.

Victorian Police Minister Lisa Neville told Melbourne radio station 3AW it is “not unusual for people to be radicalised relatively quickly. That can occur, but certainty in this case the police … believe there was enough evidence to charge her with very serious offences.” Ms Neville said government agencies needed to make proper checks on students applying to study in Australia. “We have a lot of student tourists here and it’s a great part of our economy, but I think Border Force and security agencies have a role in making sure we have good oversight of people who might be of interest,” she said. Ms Shoma wanted to become a university teacher and was previously a student at one of the top private universities in Bangladesh, North South University, according to her family. Her mother died about a year ago from diabetes and her father, a manager of an insurance company, has limited English and is reportedly devastated and baffled by her arrest.

Her uncle Mohammed Abdul Aziz, a senior university official in the capital of Dhaka, said her arrest had come as a shock and he was struggling to believe the allegations. "As a family we are totally, totally devastated," Dr Aziz said. Ms Shoma’s trip to Melbourne is believed to be the first time she had travelled overseas, and her first time travelling without her parents. Dr Aziz said he last talked to his niece on the phone earlier this month and she had told him everything was fine and that the people were "nice" and "good". "She did not have anxiety, she was comfortable where she was. What went wrong, I don't know," he said.

Her sister Sumona has been held in custody on terrorism charges in Dhaka pending a court appearance.