Bangladesh buries cafe attackers after months

The five shot and hacked to death 20 foreign hostages at Holey Artisan Bakery in July in Dhaka's Gulshan neighbourhood

DHAKA, BANGLADESH: A Bangladeshi charity on Thursday buried the five extremists behind July's devastating attack on a Dhaka cafe after their families refused to take the bodies, police said.

The five shot and hacked to death 20 foreign hostages at the Holey Artisan Bakery on July 1 in Dhaka's Gulshan neighbourhood – an attack claimed by the self-styled Islamic State group.

Military commandos brought the hostage crisis to a bloody end the next morning after they stormed the compound and gunned down the extremists.

The military handed over the bodies of the five attackers and their alleged associate to the police on Thursday after no relatives came to claim the bodies for nearly three months.



"We gave the six bodies to Dhaka Metropolitan Police. Since their death no one came to us to take the bodies," military spokesperson Colonel Rashidul Hasan said.

Dhaka police spokesperson Masudur Rahman said they handed over the bodies to the Anjuman-e-Mufidul Islam, a Muslim charity which collects and buries unidentified bodies according to their religious rites.

"They buried the bodies in a Dhaka graveyard," he said. "How long can we keep the bodies in the mortuary?"

The father of one of the attackers said he had disowned his son after he learnt about the attack. He said he was too "ashamed" to be the father of an extremist.

Local media reported that other families were reluctant to take the bodies as they did not want to be seen as sympathic towards their children.

Since the attack Bangladeshi security forces have shot dead at least 28 suspected extremists in a massive crackdown.

Police have said a local extremist outfit, led by a Canadian citizen of Bangladesh origin, was responsible for the cafe carnage, rejecting IS's claim that its fighters carried out the attack.