Bangladesh cafe attack suspect put on 8-day remand

A court in Bangladesh capital Dhaka has granted eight days of remand for each of two key suspects in the deadly Dhaka cafe terror attack.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Nurunnahar Yasmin passed the order presented by Bangladesh's special counter-terrorism unit.

Hasnat Karim, a British-Bangladeshi man and a former North South University teacher, and Tahmid Hasib Khan, a Canadian university student, seeked a 10-day remand for each before the court on Thursday, and Yasmin granted police to grill the duo for eight days in custody.

Earlier in the day Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Spokesman Masudur Rahman told journalists that Karim and Hasib were arrested on Wednesday night from capital Dhaka's Bashundhara area.

The whereabouts of the Spanish cafe attack survivors -- Karim and Khan - remained a mystery in the aftermath of Bangladesh's first-ever hostage crisis on July 1 in which 18 foreigners were killed.

The arrests came a day after Bangladesh announced a cash reward of 4 million taka (about 50,632 U.S. dollars) to anyone giving information leading to the arrest of the militant kingpins -- Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury and former army officer Syed Md Ziaul Haque.

Canadian-Bangladeshi Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury along with former army officer Syed Md Ziaul Haque, who has been dismissed for a coup attempt, plotted to attack Spanish cafe in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan, police said Wednesday.

Both Chowdhury and Haque were also behind the attack near the country's largest Sholakia Eid prayer venue on July 7 and the militants gunned down in Dhaka's downtown Kalyanpur area during a raid on July 26.

Responsibility for the Gulshan attack has been claimed by the Islamic State group, an assertion rejected by the authorities, who blamed "homegrown" terrorists for the incident. Six of the gunmen were killed while one was captured and detained alive, but he later died in a hospital.

Bangladesh has pointed finger at the banned Islamist outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) for the terror ttack at the Spanish restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan on July 1 that left 22 people, including 18 foreigners and two police officers dead.

JMB, campaigning for establishment of Islamic rule in Bangladesh, carried out a series of bombing attacks in 63 out of the country's 64 districts, including capital Dhaka on Aug. 17, 2005, leaving two people dead and 150 others injured.

Hundreds of JMB leaders and activists were rounded up while six top leaders of the group, including Shaikh Abdur Rahman, were hanged in 2007.

Police said militants gunned down in Dhaka's Kalyanpur area during a raid on July 26 were involved with JMB.

Before the wounds of the July 1 deadly terror attack had even begun to heal, Bangladesh suffered a fresh blow on July 7 when terrorists attacked Muslims' Eid prayers.

At least four people were killed, including two police officers and one of the attackers, after several explosions and gunfire took place at the entrance of the country's largest Sholakia Eid prayer venue in Kishoreganj district, some 117 km northeast of Dhaka, on the morning of July 7. Endit