The Eid-al-Fitr festival celebrates the end of Ramadan, when Muslim families break their fast and celebrate with their communities and families.
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The Islamist terrorists, who carried out a barbaric attack in a Dhaka cafe last Friday killing 22 people, were armed with five pistols and three AK-22 rifles, the police said on Thursday. They are in a critical condition and have been shifted to a military hospital in Dhaka. A civilian woman was also killed.
Another senior officer said that six of his men had been injured in the attack and one of the attackers had been shot dead, while home-made machetes had been recovered from the scene.
Though Islamic State has claimed many past attacks, including the hostage-taking, Hasina’s government has dismissed those claims as opportunistic and says none of the attacks have been orchestrated from overseas.
Two policemen were killed and more than 10 injured as bombs exploded near Sholakia Eidgarh grounds in Kishoreganj just before Eid Prayers.
The attackers started throwing home made bombs and were also carrying guns, knives and machetes.
“It is a political attack to oust and topple the secular government of Sheikh Hasina”, Minister Hasanul Haq Inu told Indian broadcaster CNN-News 18.
“But I call upon the people not to panic which will only benefit the militants’ goal and instead wage a social resistance against the extremists”, he said.
Bangladeshi authorities are cracking down on social media sites that allow the proliferation of radical Islamist material after one of the deadliest extremist attacks in the country’s history last week.
Today’s attack happened near a mass Eid prayer gathering in Kishoreganj in Bangladesh that had a massive crowd of 200,000 people who had come together for prayer.
The ongoing spate of attacks, which began in 2013, has generally targeted atheists, religious minorities and others considered by militants to be “enemies of Islam”. However, the government has been persistently denying Islamic militants’ presence in the country.
Despite being known as a tolerant country, extremism is becoming more common in Bangladesh, Lisa Curtis, a South Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center in Washington, told the Monitor.
Two policemen and a housewife died in the attack. “They are anti-Islam, anti-religion and anti-government”, he said.
Local television station Somoy broadcast footage of a gunfight between police and a group of attackers and reported the policeman had been hacked to death.
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The government has dismissed those statements and insists that the violence is homegrown. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government deny that worldwide jihadist networks have gained a foothold in the country.
