Bangladeshi struggles with son’s fatal fall into militancy

[...] Towhid Rouf is having trouble believing that this skinny, bearded man — killed with eight other suspected Islamist militants in a Bangladesh police raid — could possibly be his smart, well-behaved son.

Orko, 24, and the other suspected militants were killed July 26 when police raided an apartment in the Kalyanpur area of Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital.

Bangladesh’s secular government has geared up its drive against militancy after several months of deadly attacks targeting foreigners, atheist bloggers and religious minorities in the Muslim-majority South Asian nation.

The worst came July 1, when armed men killed 20 hostages, including a UC Berkeley student and 16 other foreigners, at a Dhaka restaurant.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attacks but the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed has rejected the claim, saying they belong to banned domestic group Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh.

Rouf, who supplies arms and other items to Bangladesh’s security agencies as a local agent, said he and his wife raised Orko and two daughters in a liberal environment.