Seven to die in Holey Artisan attack case

Seven people were sentenced to death on Wednesday for their roles in the Holey Artisan cafe attack, one of the major terror attacks on Bangladesh’s soil.

The death convicts are — Jahangir Alam alias Rajib Gandhi, Mahmudul Hasan Mizan, Sohel Mahfuz, Rashidul Islam alias Ryash, Hadisur Rahman Sagor, Mamunur Rashid Ripon and Shariful Islam Khaled.

Judge Mohammad Mujibur Rahman of Dhaka Anti-terrorism Special Tribunal also fined each of the convicts Tk 50,000 and acquitted an accused, Boro Mizan.

On July 1, 2016, in the month of Ramadan, a group of armed extremists stormed into cafe Holey Artisan Bakery at Gulshan.

They killed two people within half an hour and kept the cafe under seize for 12 hours. The hostage crisis ended following an army-led commando operation on July 2, 2016.

A total of 22 people — nine Italians, seven Japanese, an Indian, a Bangladeshi-born American and two Bangladeshis along with two police officers — were killed before commandoes stormed the cafe and neutralised the extremists.

The Islamic State group claimed the responsibility for the attack.

The government and its agencies denied the claim and branded them as ‘Neo-JMB’ members and a number of them were from a breakaway faction of banned extremist outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh.

The Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, in separate statements, denied their involvement in the attack.

The cafe’s chef Saiful Chowkidar was also killed in the commando operation while its staffer Jakir Hossain Shaon later died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital in custody.

The counter terrorism officials are yet to determine the circumstances in which Saiful and Jakir were killed or whether they had any link to the attack.

Twenty-one people were identified to be the masterminds behind the attack. Among them, 13 were killed in gunfights at different times. The other eight accused are in jail.

Hasnat Karim, a North South University teacher who was one of the hostages and later detained, was acquitted since there was no evidence of his complicity with the attack, police said.

On July 23, 2018, police pressed charges against eight people in the case. The tribunal framed charges against them on November 26 of the year. On December 3 last year, the trial began with the deposition of witnesses.

On November 17 last, the tribunal set November 27 for delivering its verdict.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net