DHAKA, Bangladesh — Rohan Imtiaz epitomized Bangladesh’s new urban middle class. The son of a politician, he was a business student at one of the best private universities in Dhaka. His future appeared bright.
But when his parents returned Jan. 1 from a medical visit to India, Imtiaz was missing. Although his father, S.M. Imtiaz Khan Babul, a midlevel official in the governing Awami League party, filed a police report and met with various law enforcement agencies, six months passed with no trace of his son.
Imtiaz finally surfaced over the weekend in a shocking way: He was identified as one of five suspected Islamist radicals who stormed a Dhaka restaurant, took patrons hostage and methodically killed 23 people, most of them foreigners, in an attack that was claimed by Islamic State.
“Rohan rarely used to get free time from his studies to do anything,” said a woman who answered the door at the Imtiaz family’s home in Dhaka and identified herself as his aunt. “We just don’t know when someone else motivated him to do this.”
The deadliest assault by far in more than a year of militant violence in Bangladesh has sent this South Asian nation of 160 million reeling, not only over its brutality but also over the identities of the suspected killers — mostly middle-class, educated men in their 20s who did not outwardly seem prone to radicalism.
Bangladeshi officials said Tuesday that they had identified the five suspects who were killed in the attack, describing them as members of banned domestic Islamist radical organizations. Their names were first reported after the Amaq news agency, which is affiliated with Islamic State, released photos of the men following the attack, allowing friends to identify them on social media.
Authorities, who also released photos of the deceased suspects from the crime scene, said their families were notified as of Tuesday.
“They are all Bangladeshis,” Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said.