Ambassadors of different countries to Bangladesh have paid their tribute to the victims of the militant attack on Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka’s Gulshan, to mark the sixth anniversary of the attack.
Japanese Ambassador Ito Naoki, Italian Ambassador Enrico Nunziata, US Ambassador Peter D Haas and Indian High Commissioner Vikram K Doraiswami paid their respects and placed floral wreaths at a temporary altar before the bakery building.
Doraiswami said: “A lot of police officers and civilians died that day. We should remember what caused the event and fight such crimes together so that tragedies like this do not happen in future.”
“Seven of our citizens died in the incident six years ago, all working on JICA’s Dhaka Metro Line-1 project,” said Ito Naoki. “We will never forget them nor what happened that day.”
Gulshan police station OC Abul Hasan said the owner of the building lived there now. He said the building owner had told him that if someone wanted to pay their respects they should talk to the police first.
On the night of July 1, 2016, five armed militants stormed the O Kitchen restaurant and Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan and killed 22 people, including 17 foreigners and two police officers, in one of the worst militant attacks in Bangladesh’s history.
The carnage ended when a team of army commandos stormed the restaurant and shot the five attackers dead the next morning.
On November 27, 2019, a Dhaka court delivered its verdict in the case filed over the carnage, sentencing to death seven New JMB militants, including the mastermind of the attack.
