Holey Artisan case witness unfolds

Dhaka, Feb 06 – Eyewitness Sharmina Parvin of the Holey Artisan Bakery case, on Wednesday appeared before a tribunal of Dhaka and narrated how the militants killed innocent people before her inside the capital’s Holey Artisan Bakery on the night of July 1 of 2016.
Parvin, wife of Abul Hasnat Reza Karim, who was shown arrested in the Holey Artisan café case and later exempted from the charges, gave her statements before the Anti-Terrorism Special Tribunal of Dhaka. Later, defense for the accused, cross-examined her.
Parvin said she, her husband Hasnat Karim, a former teacher of North South University, and two children went to the Holey Artisan Bakery around 8:30 pm on July 1, 2016 to celebrate her daughter’s birthday.
“We ordered a waiter to serve food and were waiting at the last table of the bakery. All on a sudden, we saw three to four youths with arms entered there and started indiscriminate firing and asked us whether we are Muslims. We answered positive. Then they asked us not to be afraid.
They also asked us to head down. After a while, we found them firing at 8 to 10 foreigners who were behind us. They asked us to cover the eyes and noses of our children so that they could not see the incidents.”
“After sometime, the masked militants took four people including a boy and two girls in front of us and asked them to sit beside us throughout the whole night,” said Parvin in her statement.
The militants put out all the lights except a light at veranda. At around 1:30 am, they brought a foreigner before us and shot him dead. They also randomly chopped the bodies to ensure their deaths,” she said.
“They arranged some food for us for sehri as the Ramadan was going on. But we could not take food as there were dead bodies around us. They also took my husband and a boy at gun point to rooftop and after five to six minutes the militants brought them before us.
At one stage, the militants gave us a key to go out of the bakery and returned our valuables including mobile phones. At around 7:30 am the following day, law enforcement agencies rescued us and later handed us over to detectives. Detectives then took us to their officer, interrogated us about the incident and later freed us” further said Parvin.
Parvin also said that her husband was shown arrested in the case a month after the terrorist attack.
Judge Majibur Rahman of Anti-Terrorism Special Tribunal of Dhaka recorded the statements of Parvin and later defense cross-examined her.
Two more witnesses including brother of the slain assistant commissioner Rabiul Karim, gave statements before the tribunal.
They are Md Shamsuzzaman, brother of Rabiul, and his cousin Mollah Md Anwarul Amin. Shamsuzzaman in his statement said at around 10:00 pm on July 1 of 2016 he came to know that his brother Rabiul Karim was injured during a gunfight with the militants at Holey Bakery.
Later, he went to Dhaka United Hospital from Savar and found his brother dead.
He was at the hospital all the night and the following day he put his signature on the inquest report which police prepared. Amin also came to know that his cousin was killed inside the Holey Bakery and went to United Hospital. The following day, they received the body from Dhaka Medical College and Hospital. The tribunal then fixed February 12 for the next hearing. – Special Correspondent