Bangladesh rejects hostage drama claim
Print Edition
SECURITY officials were yesterday searching for evidence and the possible masterminds of a weekend hostage-taking in an upscale restaurant in Bangladesh’s capital. The government has rejected the Islamic State group’s claim of responsibility for the attack that left 28 people dead, including six attackers and 20 of the hostages.
Police released photographs of the bodies of five attackers, along with their first names: Akash, Badhon, Bikash, Don and Ripon. The men belonged to the banned domestic group Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, or JMB, and their families hadn’t heard from them in months, according to police. Asked whether they might also have had Islamic State ties, Police Inspector General A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque said authorities were investigating that possibility.
Despite the police saying IS links were being investigated, the home minister denied the possibility that Islamic State directed the attack from abroad. Bangladesh’s government insists the extremist Sunni Muslim group based in Syria and Iraq has no presence in the country, and in the past has suggested that any claims of responsibility for violence waged in the South Asian country are simply opportunistic attempts at grabbing global attention.
“They are all Bangladeshis. They are from rich families, they have good educational background,” Khan said of the attackers. One surviving suspect was detained when paramilitary forces ended the 10-hour standoff on Saturday morning, and authorities said he was being interrogated.
The siege marked an escalation in the militant violence that has hit Bangladesh with increasing frequency. Most of the attacks in the past several months have involved machete-wielding men singling out individual activists, foreigners and religious minorities.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has accused her political opponents of trying to create chaos by backing domestic militants.
“Anyone who believes in religion cannot do such an act,” Hasina said on Saturday. “They do not have any religion, their only religion is terrorism.”
Yesterday morning, the first of two days of national mourning for the victims, police were blocking all access to streets near the Holey Artisan Bakery where the siege occurred. Investigators from both Bangladesh and Japan visited the restaurant to collect evidence.
The hostages who were killed were nine Italians, seven Japanese, three Bangladeshis and one Indian teenager. Two police officers were killed by the attackers, and 13 people rescued when commandos stormed the restaurant on Saturday morning. Another 25 officers and a civilian were wounded, and some of the rescued hostages had injuries.
The attack was the worst in the recent series of attacks by radical Islamists in the moderate, mostly Muslim nation.
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