Similar to Bangladeshi investigators, Italy has also not found any link of the Islamic State’s involvement in the murder of Italian citizen Cesare Tavella in Dhaka, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal has said.
“Italy also collected information on the murder, but they did not find any involvement of the IS,” the minister told journalists after a meeting with Italian Ambassador to Bangladesh Mario Palma at his secretariat office yesterday.
“The Italian ambassador opined that there is no existence of the extremist outfit IS in Bangladesh,” Asaduzzaman added.
“He [Palma] also termed the incident [killing of Tavella] unexpected,” the minister said.
He added that primary investigation by Bangladeshi law enforcers has also found that the IS was not involved with the death of Tavella, who was shot and killed on Monday by unidentified assailants in the capital’s Gulshan diplomatic zone.
Following Tavella’s death, Site Intelligence Group, a website that tracks online activity of Jihadi organisations, reported that Islamic State had claimed responsibility for killing the Italian national.
“We have collected a few video clips of the incident, but those are not clear. A number of the street lights were not working at the time,” Asaduzzaman said.
On another note, the minister said it was “unexpected and sad” that the US, the UK, and Australia issued travel alerts for their citizens living in Bangladesh citing militant threats.