B’desh police kill Dhaka cafe attack mastermind

DHAKA: Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, the mastermind of a cafe attack in Bangladesh that killed 22 people including an Indian girl last month, was on Saturday killed along with his two aides during a police raid on their hideout near Dhaka.

“The gunfight erupted after police started raiding a building at Naraynganj’s Pikeparha on the outskirts of Dhaka,” Counter-terrorism Unit’s Additional Deputy Commissioner Sanowar Hossain was quoted as saying by the bdnews24.com.

The unit’s chief Monirul Islam earlier said the raid was conducted upon information gleaned from an arrested operative of the banned Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).

Police spokesman Jalaluddin confirmed that Bangladesh-born Canadian citizen Tamim Chowdhury was among those killed during the raid, the second major clampdown after the nine suspected Islamist terrorists were killed last month.

A joint team from Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit, police headquarters and district police cordoned off the house since the morning on information that a group of militants were staying there, superintendent of Narayanganj police Mainul Haq was quoted as saying by The Daily Star. As the security forces tried to enter the house, the criminals opened fire from inside, he said. Talking to reporters at the scene, the Inspector General of Police said the operation was carried out under codename ‘Operation Hit-strong 27’ in which police’s elite SWAT conducted the main part. “The duration of the operation was one hour. When we entered into the house we saw three bodies lying on the floor,” he said. “The face of one of them completely matched with the photograph of Chowdhury, which made us sanguine that he is the man,” he said.

Another police officer at the scene said the slain militants used to live in the house as tenants identifying themselves as “medicine businessmen”. He said the landlord extended cooperation in carrying out the raid. Few grenades and a pistol were found from the scene. Chowdhury, 30, was identified by police as the mastermind of the country’s worst terror attack on July 1 at Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka that killed 22 people including an Indian girl.