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A group of as many as nine gunmen have attacked a restaurant in the diplomatic quarter of the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, killing at least two policeman.
Benazir Ahmed, the head of the elite Rapid Action Battalion, an anti-crime unit, said on Friday night that his team was working to try and save the lives of the people stuck inside the restaurant.
"We would like to resolve the situation peacefully," he said. "And I urge everyone to remain calm and not to panic."
A large contingent of security personnel had cordoned off the area around the restaurant and members of the local police's were on site.
"Some of our people have been injured. Our first priority is to save the lives of the people trapped inside," the security chief said.
Sumon Reza, a supervisor at the Holey Artisan bakery that operates in the same building as the restaurant, escaped the attack. He told the Dhaka Tribune that he saw two slim attackers who appeared to be under 30 carrying small firearms and at least one had a sharp weapon with him.
Reza said the attackers were shouting Allahu Akhbar - God is the greatest in Arabic.
Al Jazeera's Maher Sattar, reporting from Dhaka, said: "It's a place where you have a lot of foreigners … you have a lot of Bangladeshi elite … and is quite popular among the diplomatic corps. That makes one wonder if that’s the reason why it was chosen."
The US Embassy in Dhaka said on its Twitter feed that there were "reports of shooting and hostage situation".
Bangladesh has recently seen an upsurge in militant violence in recent years. Nearly two dozen atheist writers, publishers, religious minorities, social activists and foreign aid workers have been killed since 2013 by attackers.
Source: Al Jazeera
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