During negotiations with the joint forces, the
militants holed up in the upscale Holey Artisan Bakery demanded the release of
Khaled Saifullah, an activist of the banned militant outfit Jamaatul
Mujahideen Bangladesh which wants to establish an Islamic State in
Bangladesh. The recent spate of attacks on some 19
individuals from religious minority population are all being attributed to JMB.
The group may be behind Friday’s bakery attack too.
A group of Islamist gunmen hacked to death at least 20 hostages —before
six of them were shot dead by Bangladesh soldiers ending an hours-long hostage
crisis inside the Holey Artisan Bakery on Saturday.
“We found 20 bodies, all of them
murdered Friday night using sharp weapons,” Brigadier General Nayeem Ashfaq
Chowdhury said at a media briefing.
Bangladesh joint forces launched ‘Operation Thunderbolt’ around 7.40 am,
nearly 11 hours after the siege began around 9.10 pm Friday.
After a massive gunfight, they killed six of the seven militants holed
up in the bakery and rescued 13 people, including a Japanese and two Sri Lankan
nationals.
Two Bangladesh police officials were killed during an operation to break
the siege Friday night.
Reuters quoted a Japanese government spokesperson that seven Japanese
nationals, all working as consultants for Japan’s foreign aid agency, were
killed while another Japanese escaped with injuries.
Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said nine Italian hostages were
killed while another is still unaccounted for.
Among the 13 hostages rescued was the family of Hasnat Karim, an
engineer by profession. He, along with his wife Sharmin Parvin, and two
children, had gone to the upscale eatery to celebrate the birthday of one of
their children.
Hasnat’s father Rezaul Karim, quoting him, said the hostage-takers
separated the locals from foreigners. While the foreigners were taken to the
upper floor, the Bangladeshis were kept around a table.
Karim’s mother told media that the hostage-takers asked Bangladeshis to
recite from the Quran. “Those who did were given dinner,” she
said. “The gunmen treated Parvin (Karim’s wife) well as she was wearing a
Hizab (an Islamic veil). My son said the terrorists killed some of the
foreigners during the night.”
Diego Rossini, an Argentine chef, described to an Argentine
channel how he managed to escape into the next-door building during the
siege.
“They (the hostage-takers) had automatic weapons and bombs,” he
said. “I felt bullets pass so close to me, I felt fear like I’ve never
felt in my life.”
SITE, the website monitoring jihadists, quoted the Islamic
State-affiliated Amaq news agency as saying that IS claimed killing 24 hostages
during the siege. As proof, it posted photos of some of the victims.
One among the killed was Bangladeshi national Ishrat Akhond, a
human resources director at a private firm in Dhaka. Friends of Akhond, living
in Dhaka and abroad, were seen mourning her loss on social media.
“We mourn those we know personally and pray for those we don’t. Never
saw her without a smile. Ishrat Akhond, You are Happiness. Will always remember
her that way,” wrote Gibran Tanwir, Akhon’s friend, on Facebook.
Three Bangladeshis were also killed during the siege.
Tarishi Jain, 19, from India was also among those killed.
While six hostage-takers were shot dead, one was captured alive.
Earlier, during negotiations with the joint forces, the militants had
demanded the release of Khaled Saifullah, an activist of the banned militant
outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) who was arrested from Demra in the
outskirts of Dhaka recently. The terrorists also demanded a free passage.
JMB was formed in 1998 to establish an Islamic State in
Bangladesh. The outfit came into prominence in August 2005 when within a matter
of 40 minutes, their militants exploded 460 crude bombs at 300 locations in 63
of 64 districts.
Following its ban soon after, JMB and its activists had been in constant
conflict with the government, especially the law enforcing agency officials.
The recent spate of 19 attacks on individuals from religious minority
population are all being attributed to JMB by law enforcing agencies and terror
and conflict experts in Bangladesh.
Sources say JMB is trying to act as the local chapter of IS in
Bangladesh. The unprecedented attack on the Dhaka bakery confirms this
notion.
In the meantime, Bhabashindhu Bar, a priest of a Hindu temple in
Satkhira, was attacked by unknown assailants early on Saturday .
According to Satkhira police, the assailants entered the temple around 4
am. After tying up the security guards, they hacked Bar and fled.
Local people, alerted by the guards, rushed the critically wounded
priest to a nearby hospital.
Syed Tashfin Chowdhury is a Dhaka-based freelance
journalist and editor
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