Islamist militants carrying bombs and machetes launched a deadly attack on Bangladesh’s biggest Eid gathering, killing four persons, including two policemen and a Hindu woman, almost a week after 22 people were slaughtered in the country’s worst terror attack.
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Thursday’s attack occurred in Kishoreganj, about 90 km north of the capital of Dhaka, where some 300,000 people had gathered for what is the country’s largest congregation for Eid, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramzan. Bangladesh’s main Islamist party has been banned from contesting polls and most of its leaders have been arrested or else executed after recent trials over their role in the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
The Police claim that during the anti-terror operation, one terrorist has been arrested alive.
Speaking to TOI from Dhaka, Hasanul Haq Inu, information minister, said, “These attackers are monsters in the garb of Islamism”. Authorities have said that they will punish anyone sharing radical material on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube in support of groups such as the Islamic State militant group (ISIS). “They will go straight to hell”, he told AFP over phone.
Though many past attacks, including the hostage-taking, have been claimed by the Islamic State group, Hasina’s government has dismissed those claims as opportunistic, and says none of the attacks have been orchestrated from overseas.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued a statement deploring the attack and the killers who had carried it out. In another video, the group said that the café attack was only a “glimpse” of what’s to come.
Just minutes before the prayers were to begin, a group of men armed with guns and machetes approached the police checkpoint near the prayer ground and hurled a petrol bomb at the policemen.
Dhaka: The three Bangladeshi young men who appeared in the latest video from Islamic State of Syria and Iraq, threatening of more terror attacks around the world, have been identified as a dentist, an aspiring singer and a management student, officials have said. “They are the enemy of Islam who committed these acts”. Sources from the site said there were about 6-10 attackers.
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“On behalf of the American people, I send my heartfelt and deepest condolences to the families and friends of the seven Japanese killed in the heinous attack”. At least 20 hostages, including Italians, Japanese, Indians and Americans, and two policemen were hacked to death in the cafe that is popular with foreigners, businessmen and diplomats.
