5 Dead Suspects Identified As Terrorists, Says Bangladesh Minister

Dhaka: Bangladesh today pressed anti-terrorism charges against several suspects and identified the fifth attacker in the country's worst terror attack as authorities intensified efforts to unravel the plot behind the brazen assault in which 22 people were slaughtered by Islamists.

"Six bodies were initially thought to be of terrorists but later five of them have been identified by their parents...Evidence suggest they are militants," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters at his office in Dhaka.

"All the slain militants are Bangladeshis and belong to different homegrown extremist groups," he added.

Islamist gunmen stormed a popular restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave late on Friday and killed 22 people, most of them foreigners from Italy, Japan, India and the US in an attack claimed by the ISIS terror group.

Mr Khan declined to reply questions from reporters about the identity of the sixth slain suspect. The relatives and staff of the Holey Artisan Bakery have claimed one of the six dead "terrorists" as the chef of the cafe, Saiful Islam Chowkider.

He also evaded questions on the identity of the lone surviving attacker who has been captured alive during the army-led commando operations last week or how many suspects were being detained in connection with the massacre.

Meanwhile, police today said they are investigating whether security forces accidentally shot dead the innocent kitchen worker when they stormed the cafe.

"We think that he was accidentally shot dead," said police official of the 39-year-old cafe worker. "We are investigating."

Investigators earlier today said they have identified the fifth of six assailants who carried out the carnage as their unfolding backgrounds stunned Bangladesh.

"We now know the background of another slain assailant, who until months ago was studying at a government college in (northwestern) Bogra," a police officer familiar with the investigation told news agency PTI.

But the media reports and analysts found a common peculiar history among all the five attackers in their 20s as they went missing between three and six months ago and reappeared at the scene the terror attack on Friday night.

Three of them hailed from wealthy families and studied in posh schools and universities at home and abroad while the rest two came from a rural background and poorer families.

Investigators earlier said one of the youths appeared to have led the massacre with a background of madrassa education in a village in northwestern Bangladesh.

The charges against the suspects in the case were filed at Gulshan Police Station at midnight, Inspector General of Police (IGP) AKM Shahidul Haque said.

"We filed the case under the Anti-terrorism Act...five men have been made accused by their names and several others as unidentified accused," the duty officer of the police station said.