Bangladesh ‘free from curse’ as police kill militants

BANGLADESH’S prime minister said the nation was “free of another curse” on Saturday after police stormed a militant hideout, shooting dead the suspected mastermind of an horrific attack on a cafe that killed 22 hostages.

The bodies of three Islamist extremists were retrieved after police staged an hour-long gun battle with militants in Narayanganj, a city 25 kilometres south of Dhaka, officers said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina praised police and intelligence agencies for the operation, which killed Tamim Chow- dhury, a Bangladeshi-Canadian believed to have planned the attack.

“The main mastermind of the Holey Artisan [attack] has been eliminated,” Hasina told reporters at her office, referring to the Gulshan cafe incident.

“The nation has become free of another curse,” Hasina said, adding that the “elimination of the extremists” would bolster “people’s confidence”.

The police raid came two days before US Secretary of State John Kerry is set to arrive in Bangladesh, the highest-ranked Western official to visit the South Asian nation since the attack. Officials said security issues, including Dhaka-Washington DC anti-terror cooperation, will feature during Kerry’s talks with his Bangladeshi counterpart today.

Thirty-year-old Chowdhury, who returned from Canada in 2013, had earlier been named by police as the suspected mastermind of the attack on the cafe in Gulshan, an upscale Dhaka neighbourhood.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the July 1 attack, releasing photos from inside the cafe during the siege and of the five men who carried out the deadly assault and were shot dead at its finale. But police and the Bangladesh government rejected the IS claim, saying a new faction of homegrown militant group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh ( JMB) led by Chowdhury was behind the attack in which 20 hostages, including 18 foreigners, were killed along with two policemen.

Police blame the JMB for the deaths of more than 80 foreigners and members of religious minorities over the last three years.