Bangladesh has sought to reassure the international community despite admitting that in some ways things will never be the same again — much like the attacks of September 11, 2001 that changed the American psyche forever.
In a recent opinion piece published in US News & World Report, a Washington-based media outlet, foreign minister A H Mahmood Ali came up with the assurance mentioning that Bangladesh is still mourning the terror attack at Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka.
“But the attack has also steeled Bangladeshis’ determination to make sure the dream of a secular, inclusive, tolerant state doesn’t die,” he wrote.
The foreign ministry in Dhaka also distributed the article published on August 5 titled ‘Homegrown Terror: Bangladesh is committed to fighting homegrown terrorism and preserving its secular, inclusive democracy’.
“Few can better sympathise with the parents of the victims of the Holey Artisan Bakery than she (Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina). And none is better equipped — or more determined — to fight against homegrown terror and keep the dream of a secular Bangladesh alive,” the foreign minister says.
Bangladesh is all too familiar with homegrown terror, minister Ali said adding that when the young nation was just four years old – in 1975 — it experienced a horrific act of terrorism.
Rogue members of the Bangladesh military assassinated the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and most of his family members, except two daughters who were outside the country,  he writes further.
Now, 41 years later, one of those daughters, Sheikh Hasina, is the prime minister of Bangladesh.
Terrorist organisations such as the Islamic State group and Al Qaeda have remarkable reach around the globe, thanks to the internet and the near-ubiquity of smart phones, says minister Ali.
“They no longer need a base of operations in countries they wish to terrorise. Instead, they recruit online through propaganda videos and message boards. Some of these recruits, including possibly some of the Dhaka attackers, follow up on these remote appeals and visit the terrorists’ base countries to get training.”
The foreign minister says though Bangladeshi terrorists may pose in front of the black flag of the Islamic State group, they are not really Islamic State terrorists.
“They are local dissidents who have turned violent and have added another, internationally known name to their treachery. Bangladesh intelligence gathering has confirmed this.”
Ali said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina broadcast an emotional appeal to parents, asking them to tell the police about their missing children.
“Many have already been identified and found; searches for others are underway.”
Bangladesh’s investigation agencies are yet to confirm about the involvement of former North South University teacher Abul Hasnat Rezaul Karim and Toronto University student Tahmid Hasib Khan in Gulshan café attack as the probe in this regard is yet to be completed, said police.
“They’re being quizzed on remand, and it will be known after investigation whether the two suspects were involved in the attack,” additional commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police  (DMP) and chief of Counter Terrorism and Transitional Crime (CTTC) unit Monirul Islam told reporters at the DMP Headquarters.
On Thursday, a court placed Hasnat and Tahmid, arrested from the capital in connection with the Gulshan terror attack, on eight-days remand.
“We’ve been examining the photographs collected after the Gulshan attack and also scrutinising the body language of the two suspects to understand whether they fell victim to the situation,” said Monirul.
Hasnat and Tahmid were arrested for “suspicious movement”.
If their involvement in the Gulshan attack is confirmed, they will be shown arrested in the case filed over the terror attack, said the CTTC unit chief.
“We’ve got information on who were involved and played a role in the attack,” he said.
Besides, he urged the journalists to refrain from reporting on the issue without talking to those involved in the investigation.
Twenty hostages, including 17 foreign nationals, were killed by militants, while five militants and one suspected associate of the attackers were killed during a commando operation inside the café on July 2.
Meanwhile, investigators sent cellphones of Rezaul Karim and Tahmid Hasib Khan to the criminal investigation department yesterday.
This is to find out the contacts of the Gulshan attackers.
“We suspect that the militants communicated with members of their terror network using Hasnat’s cellphone,” said an officer of the CTTC.
“During interrogation, Hasnat claimed he was forced to download some specialised apps. But we suspect that Hasnat himself was a key member of the militant network that carried out the deadly attack,” he added.
As part of a planned drama, Hasnat went to the restaurant to coordinate the militant attack, pretending to celebrate his daughter’s birthday, the officer said.
Investigators have come to know about his long involvement with the banned militant outfit, Hizbut Tahrir.
He personally met some of the militants killed in Gulshan and Kalayanpur when law enforcers conducted raids.
“As Tahmid returned from Canada just a day before the Gulshan attack and Tamim Chowdhury, too, was in that country, we kept Tahmid under close watch,” the officer said.
The police suspect Tamim to be one of the masterminds of the Gulshan attack.
“Some hostages also told us that Tahmid was carrying arms and was seen talking to some of the attackers,” he said.
At a seminar, inspector general of police (IGP), AKM Shahidul Haque, said the arrested militants choose death rather than give information about their network.
“When we arrest a militant, he tells us to kill him, saying he will go to heaven,” the IGP claimed.
He was addressing the seminar on ‘Curbing Militancy and Terrorism:  Role of Community Policing and Mass Media’ at the National Press Club in Dhaka.
He urged people to find out how militants were being motivated.
He also stressed the need for a social movement against militancy.
“The young generation is being misled by a partial explanation” he said.
The IGP urged parents to monitor the activities of their children and help them express their talent.“The police are doing their work with dedication.
We’ll have to resist terrorism and militancy by creating a social movement,” he added.
At another programme, the Dhaka metropolitan police commissioner,  Asaduzzaman Mia, said they will provide identity numbers to all Dhaka residents who live in rented houses or flats.
Each tenant will have a unique ID number and the police will be able to monitor any change in accommodation, he said, adding that they are creating a database for tenants.
The police have initiated measures to create the database.
Speaking at the re-launching of the DMP’s website, Mia urged citizens to co-operate with the police and also report harassment of citizens by the police.“We’re working to provide security for citizens and combating terrorism. But we’ll ensure that people do not get harassed in the process,” the DMP chief said.
A court in Bangladesh issued warrants yesterday for the arrest of four suspected members of a banned group, the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), in connection with the killing of a Japanese citizen last year, a prosecutor said.
Kunio Hoshi, 65, was gunned down in October by masked men on a motorcycle while on his way to visit a grass farm project in the northern district of Rangpur, less than a week after an Italian aid worker had been killed in a similar way in Dhaka’s diplomatic quarter.
The court issued the arrest warrants after deciding to press ahead with proceedings against four other suspected members of the outlawed group, public prosecutor Nayan Noor Rahman told reporters.
Police believe that the group, which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State, carried out a July 1 attack on the Holey cafe .
Islamic State and al Qaeda have claimed a series of killings of liberals and members of religious minorities in Bangladesh in the past year.
While authorities blame the violence on domestic militants, security experts say the scale and sophistication of the cafe attack suggested links to a trans-national network.