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’We’ll Meet In Heaven,’ Bangladesh Cafe Gunmen Told This Young Survivor

DHAKA: For nearly 12 hours during which they held people hostage, a group of seven young terrorists forced the staff at an upmarket restaurant in Dhaka to cook a series of meals for them - pasta and fish were their preferred choices, said a young chef who cannot be named for security reasons.

The crisis ended with 20 hostages killed. Two police men died in the operation led by commandos. Six terrorists were shot and a seventh was captured alive. Though the ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack and warned today that it will "repeat, repeat, repeat", the Bangladesh government says the terrorists were from a local banned group.

The young gunmen were ruthless, the survivor told NDTV, revealing that most of the victims were killed within the first few minutes of the cafe being stormed on Friday night. "They used gas cylinders to beat and mutilate dead bodies," he said.

The assistant chef hid with eight of his colleagues in a toilet. "The bathroom was small and we didn’t have enough air. We opened up all the taps in the hope of getting some fresh air," he said.  

"A little after midnight, the terrorists realised that bathroom door was locked from inside," he said.

"We were forced to come out. There were two terrorists - one was carrying an automatic weapon and another had a machete. We came out of the bathroom with our hands in the air, they checked us and asked whether there were any foreigners amongst us. Diago, our foreign cook, had escaped at the very beginning" he said. "Satisfied there weren’t any foreigners, they packed us back in the bathroom and locked us in."

Hours later, he said, "It was impossible to breath, we started banging on the door." The terrorists allowed them to leave the bathroom; five headed out while four chose to stay back. "I am a Hindu, I didn’t want to try my luck," he told NDTV.

One of the five who had left the toilet sat down on a chair. "Pointing to the dead bodies and the blood strewn across the floor, he asked the man seated next to him why he had not tried to intervene," the cook told NDTV. "The man smiled and said he was the one who had killed them."

As the sun was over the horizon and they finished the Sehri or dawn meal during Ramzan, the terrorists told the hostages that they would all die but would meet in heaven.

A little later, when the commandos started closing in, the cook and three others used the distraction of the gunfire to climb onto the first floor from which they jumped onto the next building.