Bangladesh police say may have killed hostage by mistake in cafe siege

It was one of the deadliest militant attacks in Bangladesh, where IS and al Qaeda have claimed a series of killings

DHAKA: Bangladeshi police said on Tuesday security forces may have shot dead a hostage by mistake during a siege of a Dhaka cafe on the weekend, believing he was one of the attackers.

Saiful Islam, a senior police official in Dhaka, said Saiful Islam Chowkidar, a pizza maker at the Holey Artisan restaurant, was among six men who were killed by the police on Saturday when officers stormed the eatery to end a 12-hour siege.



It was one of the deadliest militant attacks in Bangladesh, where Islamic State and al Qaeda have claimed a series of killings of liberals and members of religious minorities in the past year. The government has dismissed those claims, as it did the Islamic State claim of responsibility for Friday’s attack.

Witnesses recounted how a massive gunfight erupted on Saturday morning as more than 100 commandos launched the rescue operation, nearly 11 hours after the siege began at around 9:30 pm.

Thirteen hostages were rescued in total, some of whom were rushed to a military hospital.

The father of one of the survivors was told by his son how the hostage-takers separated the locals from foreigners.



The attack, by far the deadliest of a recent wave of killings claimed by IS or a local al Qaeda offshoot, was carried out in the upmarket Gulshan neighbourhood which is home to the country’s elite and many embassies.

Last month authorities launched a crackdown on local radicals, arresting more than 11,000 people but critics allege the arrests were arbitrary or designed to silence political opponents.

Bangladesh’s main Islamist party has been banned from contesting polls and most of its leaders have been arrested or else executed after recent trials over their role in the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.