Bangladeshi police may have killed hostage during Dhaka caf attack

Bangladeshi police said on Tuesdayone of the men they shot dead during the siege of a Dhaka cafeon the weekend may have been a hostage killed by mistake, whilethe hunt for accomplices of the gunmen who killed 20 peoplefocused on six suspects.

Police on Tuesday named five Bangladeshi gunmen who stormedthe restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic zone late on Friday. Mostof the victims in the violence claimed by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)wereforeigners, from Italy, Japan, India and the United States.

• Bangladesh victims include pregnant woman, students
• Police release names of restaurant attackers

It was one of the deadliest militant attacks in Bangladesh,where ISIS and al-Qaeda have claimed a series ofkillings of liberals and members of religious minorities in thepast year.

The government has dismissed those claims, as it did theISIS claim of responsibility for Friday's attack.

Pictures of five young men clutching guns and grinning infront of a black flag were posted on an ISISwebsitehours after the attack, along with the claim of responsibility,but despite that, authorities have ruled out a foreign link.

Police believe that Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB),an outlawed domestic group that has pledged allegiance toISIS, played a significant role in organising the bandof privileged, educated young attackers.

2 suspects in hospital

Confusion over exactly how many gunmen were involved was atleast partly cleared up on Tuesday when police said among thesix people security forces killed when they stormed the buildingto end a 12-hour stand-off was Saiful Islam Chowkidar, a pizzamaker at the Holey Artisan restaurant.

"We killed six people in the restaurant. A case has beenregistered against five. The sixth man was a restaurantemployee," Saiful Islam, a top police official investigating theattack, told Reuters.

"He may not be involved," he said, adding that theinvestigation was going on.

An employee of the cafe, shown a photo of a man killed atthe eatery and wearing a chef's outfit, identified him asChowkidar, and said he had worked there for 18 months.

Police named five men as attackers in a case filed onTuesday to allow them to launch official investigations,including questioning families of the militants for clues as towhat turned them into killers.

Two other suspects are in hospital.

Major escalation

Police said they were hunting for six members of the JMB whowere suspected of organising the attack.

"Six members of JMB have been shown as accused in the case.We are trying to arrest them because they could be themastermind," Islam said.

The JMB has been accused of involvement in many of thekillings over the past year and Islam said police wereinterrogating more than 130 of its members already in custody inthe hope of gleaning clues.

"We don't know who is the mastermind behind the attack. Wejust know that these boys were guided to launch an attack on therestaurant," he said.

The five named in the case filing were Nibras Islam, RohanImtiaz, Meer Saameh Mubasheer, Khairul Islam and Shafiqul Islam.

The attack marked a major escalation in the scale andbrutality of violence aimed at forcing strict Islamic rule inBangladesh, whose 160 million people are mostly Muslim.

It has shocked the country, as have details emerging aboutthe well-to-do lives of some of the gunmen.

At least three of the gunmen were from wealthy, liberalfamilies who had attended elite Dhaka schools, in contrast tothe traditional Bangladeshi militant's path from poverty and amadrassa education to violence.

Three of the attackers had been missing since the beginningof the year, police have said.

Two had attended a private university in Malaysia, one ofwhom, Nibras Islam, was not particularly religious, according toa student who played football with him at a private college inDhaka between 2009 and 2011.

"We are in touch with investigators in Malaysia and they aresharing all the information but as of now we have not found anylinks with international militant groups," Islam said.

One of the dead gunmen was from a poor family and hadstudied at a madrassa and another hailed from a lower-middleclass background, said another senior police official whodeclined to be identified.