Three American students have been identified amongst the 20 people brutally hacked by the ISIS terrorist in an attack on Café in Bangladesh yesterday. The American student Abinta Kabir, a student at Emory University who was from Miami, Florida was killed when terrorist opened fire on the largely populated café mainly having foreign tourists inside the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka last night. This is said to be one of the most brutal attack of the recent time. the Fellow Emory student Faraaz Hossain, who attended the college’s business school, was also identified as being among the dead by a spokesman today. Tarushi Jain, 19, who studied at University of California Berkeley campus, was also killed.
[su_expand more_text=”READ MORE” less_text=” ” height=”0″ hide_less=”yes” link_style=”button” link_align=”center”] The sources said that, ‘Emory University has learned that two Emory students, Anita Kabir and Faraaz Hossain, were among those taken hostage and murdered by terrorists yesterday in the attack in Dhaka, Bangladesh. ‘Abinta, who was from Miami, was a rising sophomore at Emory’s Oxford College. ‘Faraaz, who was from Dhaka, was a graduate of Oxford College and a student at the university’s Goizueta Business School.
The Emory community mourns this tragic and senseless loss of two members of our university family. ‘Our thoughts and prayers go out on behalf of Faraaz and Abinta and their families and friends for strength and peace at this unspeakably sad time.’
Meanwhile UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks issued a statement on Jain’s death, saying: ‘We have been in contact with her family to provide assistance in any way that we can and are working closely with our other students there to assist them in staying safe and determining whether they leave the area. ‘On behalf of our entire campus, we send our deepest condolences to her family and friends and to all the other families who have suffered such a devastating loss.’
A graduate of the American International School in Dhaka, Jain came to UC Berkeley in 2014 and was intending to major in economics. Jain and seven other students were completing internships with UC Berkeley’s Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies, according to statement from the university. According to witnesses a group of seven Islamist radicals stormed the cafe yesterday evening armed with assault weapons, pistols and ‘sharp objects’ before taking more than 30 people hostage.
The terrorists then hacked 20 people to death, sparing only those who could recite the Koran, before engaging police in a 12-hour standoff. The cafe was eventually stormed by elite Bangladeshi commandos who killed the attackers and freed the remaining hostages. Among those killed are nine Italians, seven Japanese, one Indian, two Bangladeshi, and an American citizen of Bangladeshi origin.
The Italian foreign ministry confirmed the dead as: Adele Puglisi, Marco Tondat, Claudia Maria D’Antona, Nadia Benedetti, Vincenzo D’Allestro, Maria Rivoli, Cristian Rossi, Claudio Cappelli, and Simona Monti. Most of the Italian victims were understood to work in the fashion industry, buying fabrics from Bangladesh.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe confirmed that five men and two women died worked for the country’s foreign aid agency and said they ‘were giving their all for the development of Bangladesh’.
All the attackers were from Bangladesh, Police Inspector General Shahidul Hoque told CNN, as ISIS released their grinning pictures online. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed declared two days of mourning for the victims to take place on Sunday and Monday. She also thanked all those who had expressed their solidarity with Bangladesh, and vowed that terrorism would be exterminated at all costs. She added: ‘Anyone who believes in religion cannot do such act. They do not have any religion, their only religion is terrorism.’
Army Brigadier General Naim Asraf Chowdhury said: ‘Most of (the hostages) were killed mercilessly by sharp weapons last night.’ On Friday night, Bangladeshi resident Hasnat Karim said he brought his family to the cafe in order to celebrate his daughter’s birthday. Hasnat was too traumatised to say more than a few words about his ordeal, saying only that the hostage-takers ‘did not misbehave with us’.
But he detailed to his father Rezaul how the gunmen – who were armed with automatic weapons, bombs and makeshift machetes – had split the diners into two groups. Rezaul said: ‘(The foreigners) were taken to the upper floor and the Bangladeshis were kept around a table.’ He said his son told him the terrorists ‘did not hit people who could recite verses from the Koran. The others were tortured’. He added: ‘The gunmen asked everyone inside to recite from the Koran. Those who recited were spared. The gunmen even gave them meals last night.’
Elite Bangladeshi commandos stormed the building after siege of more than 12 hours, freeing some 13 hostages, in addition to another eight who managed to flee during the siege. Six of the terrorists were shot dead and one was arrested at the scene. The ISIS media wing has claimed responsibility for the attack which was launched on the final Friday of Ramadan, as millions of Muslims prepare to celebrate the Eid holiday. The final ten days of Ramadan are the most solemn in the Islamic calendar.
Amaq News Agency, ISIS’s media wing, claimed responsibility for the attack while releasing a gruesome series of images online purporting to show victims inside the cafe. The pictures show a number of bodies piled together next to a table still covered with plates of half-eaten food, while in others bodies lie in twisted shapes on floors that are covered in blood. Two police officers were killed, including a local police station chief, Mohammed Salahuddin, who was earlier injured in the shoot-out.
According to a local photojournalist, Mr Salahuddin was asked by his colleagues not to cross the cordon as he was not wearing a bullet-proof vest. Just moments after he crossed the line, according to the Daily Star in Dhaka, he was shot. A second policeman, Robiul Islam, assistant commissioner of Uttara zone Detective Branch, has also died in the shooting, top police officials confirmed.
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