By Mainul Islam Khan
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) – One of the suspected masterminds of a terror attack on a Dhaka cafe last July that resulted in 22 deaths was killed in a gunfight with police early Friday, local media said.
Nurul Islam Marzan, who was thought to have planned the attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery, was killed along with one of his associates.
Twenty hostages and two police officers were killed when six terrorists attacked the cafe in the diplomatic zone of the Bangladeshi capital.
The state-run news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha quoted Deputy Police Commissioner Mohammad Yousuf as saying: “Marzan, one of the masterminds of Gulshan cafe attack, and his associate Saddam were killed in a gunfight with the members of Counterterrorism and Transnational Crime Unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police in the capital today.”
He said the bodies had been sent to the Dhaka Medical Hospital for an autopsy.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told reporters that none of the militants would be spared. “Marzan was a plotter and he used to lead high-rank militants,” he said.
The hostages, including nine Italians, seven Japanese, an Indian and a Bangladeshi- born U.S. citizen, were brutally killed in the attack before a commando operation was launched, during which the police officers died.
The operation resulted in the deaths of all six terrorists and the rescue of 13 hostages, including women and children, after a 12-hour siege.
So far, police have hunted down and killed at least 40 militants linked to the cafe attack, including Tamim Chowdhury on Aug. 27 in a city near Dhaka. Police said, Tamim, who was a member of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), was also involved in the planning of the attack.
