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Dhaka attack survivor being probed
DHAKA : Bangladeshi investigators are focusing on a suspected militant and a survivor as part of their frantic search for clues on Friday’s attack on an upscale
DHAKA : Bangladeshi investigators are focusing on a suspected militant and a survivor as part of their frantic search for clues on Friday’s attack on an upscale restaurant that left 20 hostages dead in the country’s first major terrorist attack.
Inspector general of police AKM Shahidul Haque said investigators are concentrating on a suspected militant detained when commandos stormed Holey Artisan Bakery on Saturday morning to end a 12-hour siege.
Six suspected militants were gunned down during the operation but police released photo of bodies of only five attackers. The identities of four militants were confirmed by either friends or families by matching the photos of the bodies.
“We will interrogate two persons, including the detained suspect after he recovers from injuries,” Haque told reporters on Monday. He did not provide their identities.
“A case will be filed today. After filing the case things will be clear further,” he said.
Investigators are also questioning some survivors and the focus has been on a university teacher who survived with his wife and two children.
The man, Abul Hasnat Reza Karim, has been in the custody of the Detective Branch, while his home in Dhaka was raided and his laptop seized.
Questions have arisen about the former North South University teacher’s past since aleading Bengali newspaper suggested in a 2012 report he was one of three teachers known as organisers and backers of the banned radical group Hizbut Tahrir.
One of the attackers, Nibras Islam, was a former student of Karim’s department at the same university.
According to Karim’s narrative, he was freed as he and his family could recite from the Quran and his wife was wearing a hijab.
But photo and videos of the siege shared on social media showed a man with a shaven head and resembling Karim walking fearlessly with his family. The same man was seen on the restaurant’s rooftop with two suspected militants.
