Terrorists walked into Gulshan cafe: Home minister

The attackers of Gulshan’s Holey Artisan Bakery entered it one by one, Bangladesh’s home minister has said.

Surveillance footage from the area shows the gunmen walking into the restaurant against previous reports by restaurant workers who said the attackers had used a microbus to enter the premises.

“The video shows how these men are walking into the restaurant, one after another. They can be seen walking on the streets,” Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said on Monday.

“The footage we have from the cameras show that they did not use a car. They came walking, one after another.”

The Holey Artisan Cafe and O’ Kitchen, an upscale cafe frequented by foreigners, came under attack on the evening of Jul 1.

Twenty diners, including 17 foreign nationals, were murdered before commandos stormed the restaurant the next morning and took out six gunmen.

Several of the young attackers were later identified as coming from affluent families in Dhaka who had disappeared for months before the attack.

“Vague info”  

Speaking to reporters, the home minister shifted slightly from his earlier comment that the authorities had prior knowledge of the threat. 

“We had intelligence report that something was going to happen, in the Gulshan area. We were prepared in many ways,” he had said a day earlier, giving rise to a storm of criticism.

But, on Monday, he said: “They were worried something like this may happen. But there was no information on how, where or when.” 

“Information like this comes every day … that this might happen … there was no information that said it will happen.”

Police were alert because of the intelligence reports, the minister said. “Police moved there as soon as they learned of the attack. They were positioned everywhere.”

Looking into ‘more threats’

Authorities are looking into the rumoured threats by Islamist radicals floating on the social media that do not mention a specific location for attacks, he said.

“The entire country is on the edge. People feel terrified because of the way these are spreading on the social media,” he said.  

“We take everything into account. All events, reports, information whether random or premeditated, we analyse everything.” 

When asked if telecoms regulators know the individuals who are spreading rumours of more threats, he said, “It takes a little time to find out where all this information is coming from, they are all under surveillance.”