Verdict on 2016 Dhaka cafe attack to come on Nov 27

An anti-terrorism Bangladeshi tribunal will deliver its verdict on November 27 on the gruesome 2016 Dhaka cafe attack that killed 20 people, including an Indian girl, the worst terror attack in the country's history.

"The judge has set the date on Sunday after hearing the concluding arguments of both the prosecution and the defence in the case," an official of the Dhaka’s Anti-Terrorism Special Tribunal said here on Monday.

The official said Judge Mojibur Rahman fixed November 27 after 113 witnesses testified before the tribunal since the hearing began in November last year when it indicted eight accused.

Investigators earlier said six terrorists who directly took part in the attack on July 1, 2016, were killed next morning in a counter-assault by military commandos.

The eight accused, however, were arrested later to be exposed to justice and they were present on the dock as the judge set the date On Sunday.

Another eight suspects including mastermind of the attack Tamim Chowdhury were killed in subsequent nationwide anti-militancy security clampdowns launched soon after the incident.

The attack prompted the government to deploy army troops, elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) to carry out the countrywide security campaign.

A terrorist group belonging to the banned Neo-Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (Neo-JMB) stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's upmarket Gulshan area and killed 20 people, mostly foreigners, in the brutal late-night attack on July 1 after the attackers took diners and restaurant staff hostage.

The Indian girl, Tarishi Jain, a student of the University of California in Berkeley, was among those killed in the attack. She was in Dhaka on vacation.

The Islamic State (IS) claimed to have staged the attack although Bangladesh has declined the presence of any foreign terrorist group in the country and attributed the assault to home-grown terrorists.

The trial started as the Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit submitted a charge sheet on July 23, 2018, after two years of investigation.