Shariful Islam alias Khaled, the last of the several key accused in the Holey Artisan Bakery attack case, has confessed to his crime in the 2016 gruesome attack that left 20 people, mostly foreigners, killed, RAB said yesterday.

Khaled, a suspected member of banned militant outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), also acknowledged his involvement in the murder of Rajshahi University’s Professor AFM Rezaul Karim Siddiquee, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) said at a press conference in it’s media centre at Karwan Bazar in the capital.

The elite force members arrested the militant along with four of his accomplices from Nachole upazila of northern Chapainawabganj district on Friday. Meanwhile, a Dhaka court yesterday granted a 6-day remand of Shariful Islam alias Khalidin a case filed under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Metropolitan Magistrate Shadbir Yasir Ahsan Chowdhury passed the order after Assistant Superintendent of Police Md Salauddin, investigation office of the case, sought a 10-day remand to interrogate the accused.

Mufti Mahmud Khan, director (legal and media) of RAB at the press briefing told the media that Khaled had sent Tk 39 lakh to a Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JMB) leader, Sarwar Jahan, for staging the Holey Artisan cafe attack. The money had been sent from a country in the Middle East.

Khaled had been sentenced to death by a Rajshahi court on May 8 last year for the professor’s murder.

Describing Khaled as a meritorious student, Mufti Mahmud said, Khaled had passed the SSC in 2008 and HSC examination in 2010 in the science group with GPA-5. Dropping out from the English department of Rajshahi University in 2013, he became involved in JMB activities.

He was introduced to the JMB group by a young person named Habib Shovon. After being linked with that group, Khaled met a top JMB leader named Tamim Chowdhury.

RAB said, in the initial investigation, Khaled said that in 2015, a meeting was held at a house in Bogra with Sarwar Jahan, Tamim, Saddam, Marjan and Sakib. Then Khaled was included in that group’s media section.

RAB’s media director said Khaled killed the professor, following instructions from the JMB group. Local JMB men helped him to collect information, addresses, phone numbers and so on.

Khaled is the elder son of a primary school teacher. After 2015, he totally severed his relation with his family. His father Abdul Hakim told the media that, after 23 May, 2015, he was unable to connect with his son. He was even unable to get Khaled on the phone in last four years. He filed a missing person’s diary with the Baghmara police station.

RAB said, with him, all the eight charge-sheeted accused in the Dhaka cafe attack case were arrested. One of the masterminds of the Holey Artisan café attack in 2016, Khaled used to play a vital role to select attackers in any killing mission, the Rab official said.

He was also a fund raiser and a trainer for the members of the JMB. On January 20, the Rab arrested Khaled’s main partner, another fugitive militant, Mamunur Rashid alias Ripon, from Gazipur. Like Ripon, Khaled also took part in a meeting of top JMB leaders in Gaibandha in February 2016, when the Gulshan cafe attack was planned.

He along with Ripon went to India in April 2016, just three months before the cafe attack, in which 20 hostages and two police officials were killed on July 1, 2016.

Khaled also provided money to the JMB leaders before the attack, officials said.

It could not be known immediately when Khaled returned to Bangladesh from India. Ripon and Khaled were on the run when police pressed charges against eight JMB militants on July 23 last year in the sensational cafe attack case.

Earlier, on the morning of April 23, 2016, Prof Siddiquee was hacked to death, only 50 yards from his residence in the city’s Shalbagan while he was on his way to the university. The murder followed the familiar pattern witnessed in the killings of teachers, bloggers and online activists as well as foreigners with sharp weapons striking the head or the neck. On July 1, 2016, a group of armed militants stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery in the capital’s Gulshan and killed 20 hostages, mostly foreign nationals. Two police officials were also killed during the 12-hour standoff.