Police question five hostages in Bangladesh
NEW DELHI — Some of the hostages rescued from the weekend attack on an upscale restaurant in Bangladesh’s capital were questioned yesterday by investigators searching for clues about the possible masterminds behind the gruesome attack that left 28 dead, including many foreigners.
Authorities were still holding five of the 13 hostages rescued when commandos stormed the restaurant in Dhaka’s diplomatic zone Saturday morning, killing six of the attackers and capturing one, according to officials.
Bangladesh police chief A.K.M. Shahidul Haque said authorities would be interrogating two men, including a suspected militant, who were detained during Saturday’s operation. He would not say whether either had been among those counted as hostages, only that they were being treated in a hospital for unspecified injuries.
A second official said the five former hostages still being held included a Canadian citizen of Bangladeshi origin and a Bangladesh-born British citizen. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to speak to the media about the ongoing investigation. The official said authorities were looking into the backgrounds of the five people and questioning their families and friends.
Global Affairs Canada, the government department which manages Canada’s diplomatic and consular relations, and consular officials at the High Commission of Canada in Dhaka said they had not received any reports of a Canadian citizen being detained.
It was not clear if all five were suspects, or if they were being held and questioned simply because authorities thought they might offer useful information in tracing the origins of the attack.
The official confirmed investigators were also speaking with a third man described by local media as a Bangladeshi who was trapped inside the restaurant along with his wife and two children. The man, a teacher at a private university in Dhaka, had returned to Bangladesh recently after living nearly 20 years in Britain.
The brutality of the attack — the worst convulsion of violence yet in the recent series of deadly attacks to hit Bangladesh — has stunned the traditionally moderate Muslim nation and raised global concerns about whether it can cope with increasingly strident Islamist militants.