It was a pleasant evening at the exquisitely decorated restaurant in Gulshan, with guests eating their favourite cuisine.

Suddenly it was hell. Five gunmen stormed the popular two-storey eatery, Holey Artisan Bakery, in Gulshan-2 around 8:30pm on Friday.

All the guests were held hostage at gunpoint. Around half of some 20 staff working in the evening shift rushed to the roof and managed to escape.

However, nine staff members hid themselves in a washroom on the ground floor and closed the door from inside. They were suffocating inside as the washroom was too small for nine adults, one of the nine staff told this correspondent at his Shahjahanpur home in the city yesterday.

“We were about to die, but we had nothing to do. We could sense that killing was going on. There were cries, screams and loud bangs,” said the staff.

The nine were praying the gunmen would leave the eatery. 

DOOR OPENS

The gunmen were searching for people in each and every corner of the bakery. Around 2:30am on Saturday, they knocked on the door of the washroom.

“We didn't open the door immediately, but they shouted at us to come out or face death,'” the staff added.

Soon they opened the door and saw the young gunmen in jeans and T-shirts.

“We were terribly frightened when we saw the gunmen. As an attacker pointed his gun at pizza chef Saiful Islam, we thought we were gone,” said the staff.

“Who are you? Are you Bangalee Muslims?” questioned one of the gunmen.

They nodded and said they were restaurant employees.

The terrorists said they were not out to kill Bangalees or Muslims but the Jews and the Nasaras.

The staff members at that time saw several blood stained bodies lying on the restaurant floor.

Twenty civilians -- nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, a Bangladesh-born American and an Indian -- were killed on that night. 

The gunmen then ordered the nine to enter the toilet again. They locked the door from outside.

The staff were somewhat relieved thinking that they would not be killed.

TURN OF EVENTS

“It was around 6:30am. We could not tolerate the suffocation. We broke the shower pipe and hit the door with it to break open the door,” said the staff.

Seeing this, the militants rushed there and angrily asked the staff why they broke the door open.

“We said we were about to be suffocated,” the employee added.

The armed men then enquired the staff about fasting. The staff told them that they drank water for sehri.

The militants then recited verses from the holy Quran and explained their meanings and advised them to pray and fast regularly as per Islamic rule, according to the staff.

The gunmen said they were facing death as they already killed “Jews and Nasaras”.

The staff had been with the militants until around 7:40am when a commando operation began to free the hostages.

Before letting the nine go, the gunmen hugged them and said: “We'll see you in heaven.”

The staff members soon came out of the restaurant. Some army men cordoned them off to the gate before handing them over to police.

“We had a new life,” said the staff.

Meanwhile, in an interview with Argentine TV channel C5N, Argentine Diego Rossini yesterday described how he survived the deadly attack.

A chef at the restaurant, Rossi said he was still in shock.

He said the attackers were “very well prepared with bombs and guns”.

“I can't still believe this happened. It was like a movie. They pointed their guns at me and I could hear shots passing by. I was very afraid like never before in my life.”