Bangladesh police said yesterday they have identified three people as financial backers of a group blamed for a deadly attack on a cafe, including a doctor who joined Islamic State jihadists in Syria.
Gunmen raided the cafe in a smart Dhaka neighbourhood on July 1 and killed 20 mostly foreign hostages, the deadliest in a series of such attacks which have blighted Bangladesh in the last three years.
The IS group claimed responsibility for the carnage but the government blamed a new faction of the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). It launched a major crackdown against the local militant group that left 40 members dead.
Dhaka police counter-terrorism chief Monirul Islam said two suspected militants, including a retired army major, have been identified as funding the JMB. They were killed in police raids last month.
Islam said a doctor also funded the group, donating 8mn taka ($10,000). The ex-army officer gave his retirement benefits and the other militant handed over the proceeds of an apartment sale.
“The doctor has gone to Syria to join the Islamic State. The other two were killed during anti-militant raids last month,” a Dhaka police spokesman also said.
Local media have reported that the paediatrician, who had worked at a state-run children’s hospital, and his family went missing months before the cafe attack.
Police have named former JMB leader Tamim Chowdhury as the mastermind of the attack. Chowdhury, a Canadian citizen of Bangladesh origin, was shot dead in a gunfight in August.
The JMB, long dormant after their top leaders were executed in March 2007, has recently regrouped with young and university-educated extremists taking the helm.
Bangladesh has been reeling from a wave of recent attacks with targets including foreigners, rights activists and members of religious minorities.
Critics say Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s administration is in denial about the nature of the threat posed by Islamist extremists. They accuse her of trying to exploit the attacks to demonise her domestic
opponents.
In August, US Secretary of State John Kerry said during a visit to Dhaka that evidence existed to link the extremists behind the attacks in Bangladesh to IS.
Indian PM hails terror crackdown: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s comprehensive crackdown on terrorism is a template for other countries on how to tackle terror, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said, IANS reports from Goa.
He made the comments during bilateral talks with his Bangladesh counterpart, Indian external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.
Swarup told reporters that Modi also spoke in favour of meeting leaders in the South Asian region more regularly and with minimal protocol.
“He (Modi) commended Shaikh Hasina for the very strong action that she was taking to counter terrorism in Bangladesh.
“In fact, he said that ‘your battle against terrorism was yielding very positive results. You have shown us all a new template on how to fight terrorism so successfully’,” Swarup said.
Modi and Hasina met at the beach village of Benaulim in south Goa.
Swarup said Hasina made a detailed presentation on the various steps her government had taken in the wake of the Holey Artisan (Bakery cafe) terror
attack in Dhaka in July.
Hasina told Modi how her administration contacted all the districts of Bangladesh to get everybody on the same page to unite against terror and took on board all the imams to raise their voice against terror.
“She said that now public awareness is very high in Bangladesh against terrorism. (Modi) totally agreed and said terrorism can only be contained with strong public support,”
Swarup said.
“(Modi) said he wants (leaders of) countries of our region should be able to visit each other at very short notice without protocol considerations coming in the way.
“That is a message the prime minister has also been raising in the Saarc context, just as leaders in Europe and leaders in East Asia for instance are able to meet regularly at a fairly short notice,” Swarup said.
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