Holey Artisan aftermath
Fears of terror attack greatly diminished
MUBTASIM FUAD, Dhaka
Fears that militancy might arise in the country after the worst-ever hostage crisis at the Holey Artisan Bakery on July 1, 2016, are no longer there, after a massive crackdown on militant networks was launched following the deadly terror attack. Militant groups tried to regroup and created some untoward situations several times after the caf attack. However, law enforcement agencies have eliminated a number of militants through counterterrorism operations, which have foiled the militants plans every time.
In the past three years after the caf attack, 28 operations were conducted. The Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit conducted 17 operations, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) conducted five and the police six operations. According to sources in the Police headquarters, after the caf attack, 79 militants either died in police shooting or blew themselves up by detonating suicide vests. According to the official database, nearly 250 people were also arrested by the law enforcement agencies for their involvement in militancy during this period. Right now, the militant outfit has some 12 to 14 active trained members, who have come to leadership positions from the third or fourth tiers. Three to four persons are leading small groups, trying to reorganise them and recruiting sympathisers through cyberspace, sources in the CTTC unit said.
In July last year, police pressed charges against eight militants over the caf attack. The case is now under trial.
The issue of militancy once again came to the fore after the government top brass, including the Prime Minister and top law enforcement officials, recently urged the people to stay alert and provide information on any suspected militant activities.
Ahead of the Independence Day celebrations in March, security was stepped up and several officials then said the measures stemmed from threats of militant attacks on religious establishments.
Besides, the home ministry recently directed Bangladesh missions abroad to strictly scrutinise the documents of applicants before issuing travel passes.
The alarm was raised amid concerns that those who went to Syria from Bangladesh or other countries to fight for Islamic State (IS) might attempt to come back home as the last IS stronghold in Syria has fallen.
According to officials of the CTTC unit of DMP, around 40 such foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) went to Syria from Bangladesh.
They have identified more than 100 expatriates or foreign nationals of Bangladesh descent who went to Syria from other countries. The April 21 bombings in Sri Lanka came at a time when IS had been fully defeated in the Syrian battlegrounds.
What happened on July 1, 2016:
One of the last days of Ramadan in 2016, the afternoon of July 1 was a quiet one at the Holey Artisan Bakery on Road 79 in the capitals Gulshan area. Everybody was unaware of the horror that would occur some hours later on that quiet afternoon.
Around 8:40pm, everyone present at the restaurant had no idea that their night out would turn into a nightmare.
Shouting Allahu Akbar, five gunmen burst into the eatery and started firing indiscriminately. They turned off all the lights, held the diners hostage and sorted out targets through a test of reciting verses from the Holy Quran.
They then brutally killed the hostages with guns and machetes, and used the victims phones to publish images of the bodies on social media.
Initially, law enforcement officials could not fathom the gravity of the situation. As they tried to close in on the place, the gunmen opened fire and hurled grenades, sending a wave of panic in the high-security area. Two police officers were killed in the attack.
Around 12 hours later, para commandos stormed the restaurant and found traces of mindless butchery. Twenty hostages, including 17 foreigners, were brutally murdered, with the cafs floor strewn with bodies.
Attacks after Holey Artisan:
On July 26in the month of the caf attack in 2016police stumbled across a militant hideout in a building while conducting a block raid in the capitals Kalyanpur area, and killed nine suspected militants, ending an overnight standoff that ensued with a raid to hunt down militant dens.
After the attack, the police said the nine suspected militants appearances, dresses and some other evidence suggested the Kalyanpur group and the Holey Artisan Bakery gunmen had some similarities.
The dead were clad in black outfits and red-and-white chequered scarves, similar to the ones five Gulshan attackers were wearing in the Islamic State (IS) photos posted by the global terrorism monitoring network SITE Intelligence.
Later, Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia said during a briefing that the militants had been planning to carry out an attack like the one at Holey Artisan.
After a month of the Kalyanpur raid, on August 27 that year, three militants, including Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, a mastermind of the Gulshan caf attack, were killed during a joint forces raid on a house in Narayanganj Sadar upazila.
Tamim had accompanied the five Holey Artisan Bakery attackers from their Bashundhara flat to Gulshan, Dhaka, and left the area after bidding them farewell just before the caf siege began on July 1. On October 8, 2016, in a massive anti-militancy crackdown, 11 suspected militants were killed in Gazipur and Tangail. Seven of them were killed at Noagaon Patartek in Harinal area under Gazipur City Corporation. They include Faridul Islam Akash, who allegedly had been trying to reorganise Neo JMB after the death of its coordinator Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury on August 27.
Two other suspected militants were killed as RAB members conducted a separate drive that day at a house in Lebubagan, just half-a-kilometre off Patartek. RAB members launched another drive in Kagmara area of Tangail town, leaving two other suspected militants dead the same day.
On December 24 that year, two were killed in a militant hideout in the capitals Ashkona area. A radicalised woman refused to surrender, blew herself up, and injured her baby girl. A dead militants son fought with cops till his death, while two women surrendered.
Coming to 2017, a total of 35 militants were killed in 15 major operations in nine districts. On 13 January 2018, three alleged militants died and two RAB officials were injured in a raid on a six-storey building in Dhakas Nakhalpara. A militant group was staying on the fourth floor of a six-storey building at West Nakhalpara, near the Prime Ministers Office (PMO). Three bodies were found inside a room after the raid. A firearm and two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were found inside the apartment used by the suspected militants. The raid was accompanied by gunfire and grenade explosions.
During the operation, the JMB men tried to trigger a big explosion by leaving grenades on a gas-stove. Seven people lived in the three-room flat. The three bodies were found in one of the rooms. The four others from the other rooms were evacuated, according to the RAB.
On October 5, 2018, a faction of the JMB plotted to carry out subversive activities at the court building of Chattogram. Two members of the faction were, however, killed in a blast inside the hideout, a tin-shed house in Uttar Sonapahar of Jorarganj union, during an operation by RAB-7.
Again, in 2019, the country faced three attacks. Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for two attack on police personnel, as claimed by the global terrorism monitoring network, SITE Intelligence.
Several attacks and raids after the Holey Artisan Caf attack mean the country is not facing any major threats now, as major militant groups have lost their capacity to carry out fresh attacks.
Additional commissioner Monirul Islam, head of the CTTC unit, told The Independent that the caf attack was a very inhuman and brutal incident in our country. We are always aware and ready to face any kind of challenge. We are ready in the way in which we should be, he said. Just as the human body always fights against diseases in its own way, we all also have to fight against militancy in the same manner, as our body does against diseases, he added.
