Bangladesh polls: 2 years after Dhaka cafe attack, war on terror takes center stage

On a quiet Friday afternoon, at the end of Road No. 79 in Dhaka’s Gulshan, lies a white two-storeyed house with a green gate and a lawn. A tall green iron screen has been erected to dissuade prying eyes, looking for the remnants of what once used to be a hip and happening joint for Dhaka’s elite and young.

Hussain, the security guard, shoos away anyone looking for the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe, which witnessed the worst terrorist attack in Bangladesh in July 2016, which claimed 22 lives including one Indian’s, and is often called Bangladesh’s 26/11.

Day after the terrorist attack, Road No. 79 was closed and cops would stand guard, only allowing residents to enter, and kept the media and onlookers away.

Two-and-half years later, one can enter Road No. 79, but from a distance, one can only see long French windows, and some plywood-covered windows, with one abandoned red stool and a run-down table. It has some creepers and banana trees in its lawns. The grainy footage of terrorists in the lawns wreaking havoc is still etched in many Bangladeshis’ minds.

There is no signboard now to suggest the cafe was there. The owners of the cafe live there, Hussain said. Next door is the Lake View clinic, aptly named as it overlooks the Baridhara lake. On Road No. 79, leading to the house and the clinic, there are some fairy lights to announce the festive season in the posh neighbourhood. A signboard identifies Ms Samira Ahmed as the owner, and the signage says, “nirdistho sthane moila phelun (please throw the waste in the bin)”.

About a five-minute drive away, on Gulshan North avenue, one walks past a light brown wooden door and the smell of coffee, muffins and apple tarts hit one’s senses.

It’s the new Holey Artisan Bakery cafe, which reopened six months after the attack, on the first floor of the Rangs Arcade, which houses a departmental store, a telecom company’s outlet, and an apparel store.

It has white walls, bright ceiling lights, wooden tables and brown wicker chairs, and some soft piano music plays in the backdrop.

Mostly young, fashionable men and women, a few elderly and a couple of expats occupy the eight tables in a large space. An undecorated Christmas tree stands in a corner.

Thirty-four-year-old Mohammad Sobuj Hossein, who survived the attack, still works at the kitchen at the cafe.

About the dreaded attack, he recalled, “I remember I was making a duck salad in the kitchen, when we heard gunshots. Two of our foreigner chefs, including an Argentinian guy, ran away from the back door.”

“Nine of us kitchen staff locked ourselves in the bathroom. We stayed there till 2 am, when the terrorists threatened to throw grenades inside and we opened. We opened the door, and they saw that we were all Bangladeshis, and locked us up in the bathroom again.”

“Through the night, we were all suffocated because there was no exhaust in the bathroom, and we were nine of us,” Sobuj, said. “We couldn’t breathe,” he said.

At around 6 am, he remembered, they broke the door partially, and he went to the second floor and jumped into the back lane, and ran away. He was detained by the Bangladesh police, and was questioned by them till about 7 pm, when his family came and he was released.

“Ami aar oyi somoy mone korte chai na (I don’t want to remember those days),” he said.

Mahjabeen Khaled, 52, loved going to Holey Artisan Cafe. “I was there some days back… I used to love their food, I could have been there. Even now, when I cross Road No. 79, I get shivers down my spine,” she said, as she sipped an Americano at the new cafe.

Khaled, an Awami League MP and member of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, said she gets worried if her 22-year-old son doesn’t return home. “That incident changed us as residents of Dhaka. We are much more careful now,” said the MP, whose father led the K-force in the Bangladesh Liberation Force, named after his surname, Khaled.

“The Holey Bakery cafe attack was a game changer event… it created a huge impact on people’s minds and brought the issue of terrorism to the centre. It is now part of the political discourse, very much dominating the elections,” said Major General (retd) Md Abdur Rashid, executive director of the Institute of Conflict, Law and Development Studies in Dhaka, and Bangladesh’s one of foremost counter-terrorism experts.

The Awami League, led by PM Sheikh Hasina, has made a firm and a determined commitment on “zero tolerance” against terrorism in her policy and it is reflected in the manifesto, he said. Rashid said there was no such clear commitment by the BNP.

Shahriar Kabir, a filmmaker-activist who has worked on terrorism, said the Jamaat-e-Islami was the real threat, and that ISIS got a foothold because of them. He blamed the BNP for giving tickets to some 22 leaders from Jamaat, a banned outfit.

Bangladesh has suffered from terrorism in recent years. Terrorism and fundamentalism has been one of India’s major concerns in Bangladesh, and Hasina government’s crackdown against terrorist groups has earned her Delhi’s confidence. But, many in Bangladesh civil society say that she has used the reason of crackdown against terrorism to going after the Opposition and civil society activists.

Back in the Holy Artisan cafe, chef Sobuj is busy making Salmon Benedict sandwiches while customers troop in through Friday afternoon.

There are barricades in front of the building, where at least nine policemen, including women cops, stand and stay vigilant.

As customers settle down, a young woman asks for a sandwich. And then the WiFi password. The waiter doesn’t spell it, he just points to one of the items on the menu. “Baguette”, priced at 300 Bangladeshi Taka, is the password. Next to it, is written, on the menu card, “Baguette: our most iconic bread with a thin crisp crust and moist interior full of those lovely large irregular holes.”

“If I go to vote, and that’s a big if, then I will vote for a safer Bangladesh,” she says, as one asks for who she will vote for.