'We know everything'
The government has all the information about the youths who are choosing wrong paths and intending to be involved in militant activities, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said yesterday.
"The number of deranged youths is very small. We know everything. We know who is staying where. We don't want to be harsh," he said, urging them to return to normal life.
He claimed the government had intelligence about the terror attacks in Gulshan cafe and Sholakia beforehand.
"We had reports that something is going to happen in Gulshan area and we were ready [to tackle it] in different ways," he told a views-exchange meeting with the authorities, representatives of teachers and students of private universities in the capital.
When the incident took place in the posh restaurant, police official Faruk reached the spot within three minutes and he informed the police commissioner when he was hit, the minister said.
Then the police commissioner immediately asked all police personnel to go there, he added.
"Our police force was ready that day. We could have entered there [the restaurant] within half an hour. But we were trying to establish contact with the attackers to know about the hostage and the others confined there."
They had taken initiatives one after another for an amicable solution, he said, adding that later the army-led commandos ended the 12-hour hostage crisis just in 13 minutes.
The cafe attackers killed 20 hostages, 17 of them foreigners, and two police officers. The army commandos later killed five attackers and an employee of the cafe.
Similarly, based on intelligence, police set up checkpoints at Sholakia. This is why police came under attacks while searching the bodies of the people trying to enter the area, Kamal said.
Two policemen and a women form a nearby house were killed during the attack. Police later shot dead one alleged attacker.
"I want to say that our law enforcement agencies are doing their job with due diligence. They have shown their patriotism as they have been trying to resist militancy putting their own lives at risk,” he said.
Addressing those involved in terrorist activities, the minister said: "If you think that you would stop the advancement of Bangladesh by killing some people, you are mistaken. Our people have stood against you."
Asaduzzaman said the whole world was now speaking up to get united to resist terrorism and militancy.
"Let us come forward to resist militancy together," he said.
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