18-year-old University of California Berkeley student Tarishi Jain was among over 20 people murdered Friday when Islamic fundamentalists shot and brutally hacked to death bakery patrons and police officers in the diplomatic district of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Jain started at Berkeley in 2015 after graduating from the American International School in Dhaka, according to UC Berkeley. She intended to major in economics and had been in Dhaka for an e-commerce internship she started in June that had been arranged through a division of UC Berkeley.
One witness to the attacks said that attackers had the staff turn on the establishment’s wifi and began posting images online of the people they had just killed, according to the New York Times. The Islamic terrorists voiced a desire to kill foreigners; Jain was an Indian national.
Witnesses have said that the Islamic attackers released Muslim hostages who could recite verses from the Koran. One waiter recounted to the Dhaka Tribune that the murderers “screamed Allahu Akbar.”
Emory University students Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain were also among the dead, according to the Daily Mail. Kabir was a U.S. citizen from Miami, Florida and was studying at the university’s Oxford campus. Bangladesh-born Hossain was a student of Emory’s Goizueta business school.
Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina attempted to paint Islam as a “religion of peace” following the violent Islamic murders. In a televised message, she accused the jihadis of tarnishing the whole religion.
The Islamic State has taken credit for the attack. Bangladeshi police have countered that claim. Two police officers also perished in the attack.
The Associated Students of the University of California will host a vigil on Tuesday to commemorate Jain’s life and the others murdered in the attack. Post-terror vigils have become a common sight in the wake of Islamic terror attacks like those San Bernardino, California; Orlando, Florida; Paris, France; Brussels, Belgium; and Istanbul, Turkey.
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