Awami Legue politician ‘stunned’ by son’s role in Dhaka attack

TIL Desk/World/Dhaka-A Bangladeshi politician, whose son was one of the suspected Islamic State militants who slaughtered hostages at a cafe here, has said he was “stunned” to learn about his son’s involvement in the assault as there was nothing to indicate that the boy was being radicalised.

“I am stunned to learn this, dumbfounded,” Imtiaz Khan, a former leader of the ruling Awami League, told. “My son used to pray five times a day from a young age. But we never imagined this. There was nothing at home, no books or anything to indicate he was leaning that way, So we had no inkling,” he said.

Imtiaz’s son Rohan was shpt dead by security forces during a joint operation to free the hostages at the Holey Artisan Bakery. Rohan’s parents filed a missing person’s report with the police after he disappeared last December and had not heard from him since. But they recognised him from photographs of the attackers that have been published in the local media.