In what is perhaps one of the worst attacks in modern Bangladesh history, an 11-hour siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka left 28 people including 20 foreigners dead. The paramilitary forces managed to rescue 13 hostages.
The survivors of the attack as well as their family members put together the gruelling hours of the siege, by recounting experiences of their own and their loved ones.
The gunmen, initially firing blanks, ordered restaurant workers to switch off the lights, and they draped black cloths over closed-circuit cameras, according to a survivor, who spoke with local Bangladesh TV channel, ATN News. He and others, including kitchen staff, managed to escape by running to the rooftop or out the back door.
But about 35 were trapped inside, their fate depending on whether they could prove themselves to be Muslims, according to the father of a Bangladeshi businessman Hasnat Karim, who was rescued on Saturday morning along with his family.
The gunmen asked everyone inside to recite from the Quran. Those who recited were spared. The gunmen even gave them meals last night.Rezaul Karim, father of a survivor.
The others, Karim said, “were tortured”.
Two foreign chefs working in the kitchen, Argentine Diego Rossini and Italian Jacopo Bioni, described how they made a dramatic escape during the initial attack, by rushing to the rooftop terrace and then jumping down two stories onto a nearby building as the attackers chased them, firing their weapons and hurling grenades.
They were very well prepared with bombs, guns, machine guns, it was horrible. I still can’t believe this happened, it was like a movie, they pointed with their guns at me and I could hear shots passing by. I was very, very afraid, like never before in my whole life... It was one of the worst moments of my life.Argentinian national, Diego Rossini.
An Italian businessman, Gianni Boschetti, had just received a phone call and stepped into the restaurant’s garden to talk when the attack began. His wife, Claudia D’Antona, was held hostage. Boschetti threw himself into some bushes, then escaped and called the Italian embassy.
His sister-in-law, Patrizia D’Antona, told state TV Boschetti “wandered all night” from hospital to hospital in hopes of finding his wife. She was later identified as among the nine Italians found slain in the restaurant.
While 19-year-old Tarishi Jain lost her life in the attack, another Indian citizen who was a doctor who spoke Bengali, passed off as a Bangladeshi, and was released.
The owner of the restaurant at the center of the bloody hostage-taking, Nasirul Alam Porag, says he wasn’t able to communicate with his staff.
Porag was in Bangkok on Saturday when the news reached him that militants took dozens of hostages at his bakery in Dhaka’s Gulshan area, a diplomatic zone.
When speaking to The Associated Press he said: “Up until five minutes ago I didn’t know anything. There is no one on the ground we can communicate with, not even the staff.”
He said the restaurant employs about 50 staff but only 20 were present at the time of the attack.
In the end, paramilitary troops managed to rescue 13 hostages, including one Argentine, two Sri Lankans and two Bangladeshis.
Japan’s government said one Japanese hostage was also rescued with a bullet wound.
(With inputs from AP.)
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