Bangladesh remembers 2016 cafe attack victims

Relatives, friends and well-wishers laid flowers at a sombre remembrance service in Dhaka yesterday in honour of the victims of a deadly terrorist attack on a restaurant in the Bangladeshi capital three years ago.Militants carried out the attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka’s upscale Gulshan diplomatic area on July 1, 2016, killing more than 20 people, including foreign nationals, and holding others hostage for hours.Nine Italians, seven Japanese, one Indian and three Bangladeshi nationals were killed by the militants before army commandos stormed the eatery the following morning.The commandos killed five militants and a chef, who was mistaken for an associate of the attackers.Two policemen were also killed during the 12-hour siege.Representatives from the Bangladesh police, political parties, cultural organisations and diplomatic missions in Dhaka paid respect to the victims by placing floral wreaths at the site of the cafe.“We will have to work together to thwart the militants in Bangladesh,” senior police officer Maruf Hasan, one of the survivors of the cafe attack, told reporters after placing the flowers.Hasan was one of the first police officers to encounter the militants and sustained injuries after the assailants threw a hand grenade toward the policemen.Bangladesh launched a nationwide anti-militant crackdown after the cafe attack and has killed more than 100 suspected radical Islamists in raids by security forces since then.Monirul Islam, head of the anti-terrorism unit of Bangladesh police, said he believed that all the accused in the cafe attack case were either arrested by the police or killed in anti-militant raids.An anti-terrorism court in Dhaka began a trial against eight home-grown hardliners in December 2008 for helping carry out the attacks.“We hope the terrorists will be given exemplary punishment by the year end,” said Monirul Islam, head of the anti-terrorism unit of Bangladesh police.The Holey Artisan Bakery was reopened at a shopping mall, a few blocks away from its original location, six months after attack was carried out.