Faraaz Hussein and his two friends, Tarishi Jain and Abinta Kabir

Faraaz Hussein was a top student at the Goizueta Business School of Emory University in Atlanta. Bangladeshi, Muslim, he was the youngest son to Simeen Hossain and Muhammad Waquer Bin Hossain - his mother being the managing director of Eskayef Pharmaceuticals Limited, Transcom Consumer Products Limited and Transcom Distribution Limited - and grandson to Latifur Rahman, the president of Transcom Group.

In the evening of 1st July 2016 he was at the restaurant Holey Artisan od Dhaka with his friends Tarishi Jain and Abinta Kabir. Another boy, Miraaj al-Haque, was late and did not manage to enter the restaurant, where some armed men were shooting among the tables.

The attackers took as hostages the restaurant's customers, while police tried to negotiate their liberation. The negotiations went on for almost nine hours, while on the social network the first pictures of the wounded and the dead in the attack were spread. Victims included nine Italians and seven Japanese.

At dawn, little before the raid of the special forces, the murderers arrived at Faraaz' table, and asked the young man to recite some verses of the Koran. For him, as a Muslim, that was easy. The terrorists thus told him he could leave the restaurant. But he chose not to do so without his friends. The murderers refused: the two girls wore Western clothes, Abinta was Muslim but American, Tarishi Jain an Indian hindu. Faraaz decided to remain with them, paying for his choice with his life.

When the special forces entered the premises, they found their corpses holding to each other. The girls, before dying, had been tortured for long.

“I have always told one thing to my son: always respect women, especially their dignity - said Faraaz' mother - He could have come back from the restaurant alive, but he remembered these teachings and did not leave his two friends alone. He kept alive the values he believed in at the cost of his life”.

On Faraaz' corpse several wounds were found: he fought before dying, he wanted to defend his friends.

“Faraaz was a very good student - said his brother Zaraif - his death reveals who he was, he resisted terrorists. He has always had this force, ever since he was a child, he always worried about the way his deed could affect the world around him”.