U of T student held in Dhaka
22-year-old taken in for questioning after being held hostage in terrorist attack
The deadly hostage crisis at a café in Dhaka ended Saturday morning in a burst of bullets and bloodshed. But for the family of Tahmid Hasib Khan, a University of Toronto student who survived with 12 other captives, the fear for his well-being had only just begun.
Days after the terrorist attack, the 22-year-old Canadian resident is still being held for questioning by police in the Bangladeshi capital while his family pleads for his release.
“He has witnessed great horrors and (had) such a harrowing experience,” said Khan’s father, Dhaka businessman Fazle Rahim Khan Shariar, in a statement provided to the Star by his nephew.
“He deserves the comfort and security of his parents’ embrace and the authorities can continue to enjoy our full co-operation even after releasing Tahmid into our care.”
Rasheek Irtisam, the nephew, told the Star in a phone interview from Dhaka that his cousin was taken in with the freed hostages for questioning more than three days ago, when security forces stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery to end the 11-hour hostage crisis. While Khan has spoken with his parents by phone, no family has been allowed to see him, Irtisam said.
Alongside their appeal to local authorities, the family is calling on Ottawa to help clear Khan, a Canadian permanent resident, of involvement in the attack that killed 22 people, 18 of them foreign nationals, according to The Associated Press.
“After such incidents, usually people are taken to the hospital, but this wasn’t the case,” Irtisam said. “Everything is messed up right now. We are trying our best to get him out.”
News reports from Bangladesh and across the globe named Khan as one of two hostages still being questioned after the café raid. The U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper reported Tuesday that Khan was detained along with British civil engineer Abul Hasanat Reza Karim. A police chief quoted in the report would not comment on the interrogations.
Canadian Global Affairs spokeswoman Diana Khaddaj declined to answer questions about Khan on Tuesday. In an emailed statement, she said consular officials in Dhaka are monitoring the situation but have “no reports of a Canadian citizen affected or detained following the attack.”
Similarly, Mylène Croteau, spokeswoman for Public Safety Canada, would not comment on Khan’s situation or anything related to national security. “We can assure you that the Canadian government is taking every step to identify terrorists and prevent their activities,” she said.
Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, claimed responsibility for the attack over the weekend and released photographs of bloodied victims, according to the terrorist monitoring group, SITE. The Bangladeshi government, however, has blamed Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, a domestic Islamist group. The country’s home minister claimed Daesh has no presence in Bangladesh and could not have coordinated the attack.
Another Canadian connection — which Public Safety and Global Affairs also refused to discuss — to terrorism in Bangladesh involves a man from Windsor, Tamin Chowdhury, who has been identified as the leader of the Daesh affiliate in the country.
Amaranth Amarsingam, a Dalhousie researcher who follows Islamist networks in Canada, said he has spoken with contacts in Windsor who said Chowdhury is the Daesh leader in Bangladesh, known by the alias Shaykh Abu Ihrahim Al-Hanif.
It is unclear whether Chowdhury was involved in orchestrating last weekend’s attack.
Irtisam, Khan’s cousin, said the young man travelled to Dhaka from Canada last Friday.
Khan recently finished his third year in life sciences at the University of Toronto, where he was a student at St. Michael’s College. Irtisam said he returned to Dhaka, where he was born and raised, to visit his parents during the Muslim celebration of Eid al-Fitr before travelling to Nepal for an internship with UNICEF.
On Friday night, the family chauffeur dropped Khan off at the Holey Artisan Bakery just moments before attackers stormed the café, Irtisam said. As news of the hostage situation spread, Khan’s family was gripped with panic — especially his mother, Irtisam said. “She was crying like hell.” At about 10 p.m. local time, Khan’s father received a text from his son. According to a Bangladeshi news report that Irtisam said was accurate, the text read: “Dad, I’m alive.”
Meanwhile, in Toronto, Riasat Ah- med got word that, not only was there a horrible attack unfolding in his home country, but that one of his close friends was in danger. Ahmed was a member of the Bangladeshi Students’ Association at the University of Toronto with Khan for the past three years. He said he heard the news from Khan’s older brother, who also lives in Toronto.
“It was horrible for me, so I can only imagine what his family was going through.” said Ahmed, 25.
Over in Dhaka, the family didn’t hear from Khan until Saturday morning, Irtisam said, after gunfire erupted and security forces stormed the café, killing five assailants and a sixth man, who was a cook there, according to a report in the Dhaka Tribune.
Khan was among 13 hostages that got out alive.
“He’s the nicest guy, the most humble guy you’ll see, always with a smile,” Ahmed said.
“I cannot think of any way in which he would be (involved in the attack). It’s just impossible in my head.”