Shawdesh Desk:

A Dhaka court has sentenced seven people to death in the case filed over the horrific militant attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery at Gulshan in the capital that left 22 people killed on July 1, 2016.

The other suspect in the case, Mizanur Rahman alias Boro Mizan, has been acquitted.

Judge Md Majibur Rahman of Anti-terrorism Special Tribunal in Dhaka pronounced the verdict in presence of all the eight accused on Wednesday, almost three and a half years after the grisly militant attack.

The seven death row convicts are Aslam Hossain, alias Rash, one of the planners, Jahangir Alam, alias Rajib Gandhi, recruiter of the café attackers, Abdus Sabur Khan, alias Sohel Mahfuz, supplier of grenades; Hadisur Rahman Sagor, suppliers of arms, and Rakibul Hasan Rigan, a so-called religious trainer, Shariful Islam Khaled and Mamunur Rashid Ripon.

Earlier on November 17, the tribunal set the date of verdict today after concluding argument in the case that was being watched across the world due to the deadly nature of the attack carried out by a group of well-educated young radicals.

A number of five armed militants stormed the upscale eatery in the diplomatic zone on July 1, 2016 and held the diners hostage before killing 20 of them—three Bangladeshis, seven Japanese, nine Italians and one Indian national.

Two police officials were also killed during the 12-hour standoff while trying to save the hostages. Later, five militants were killed in an army commando operation.

The deposition of prosecution witnesses was completed on October 27 in the case. A total of 113 out of 211 prosecution witnesses including several eyewitnesses testified before the court in the case.

The trial initiated on November 26, 2018 by framing charges against eight militants while the recording of depositions of witnesses started on December 3 in the same year.

After the incident, Sub-inspector Ripon Kumar Das filed a case under the Anti-Terrorism Act with the Gulshan police station.

After more than two years of investigation, Counter Terrorism and Trans-national Crime (CTTC) unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) submitted a charge sheet on July 23, last year against eight militants of the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).

CTTC in the charge sheet said, “Neo JMB” militants had planned the attack and their intention was to create “unrest” in Bangladesh in a bid to turn this Muslim-majority country into a “terrorist state”.

During the probe, CTTC found the involvement of 21 militants with the café attack. Of them, five attackers—Nibrash Islam, Mir Sabeh Mubashir, Rohan Imtiaz, Khairul Islam Payel and Shafiqul Islam Uzzal—were killed inside the Holey Artisan bakery during the commando operation that ended the siege.

Besides, eight others including the mastermind of the attack, Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, were killed later in different anti-militant drives.

They were Café attack coordinator Nurul Islam Marzan, a top operative of mainstream JMB and its financier Sarwar Jahan, Retired army major and trainer Jahidul Islam, software engineer Basharuzzaman Chocolate, top JMB operative Abu Raihan Tarik, banker and financier Tanvir Kaderi, and grenade supplier Mizanur Rahman, alias Chhoto Mizan.