Police said four youths were mugging a pedestrian in a lane near the Green Road in Tejgaon at around 12:20am when the police on patrol intervened.

Confronted by the law enforcers, the muggers opened fire on them. As policemen returned fire, two of the alleged muggers, Mohammad Jalal, 20, and Sagor, 18, received bullets and fell to the ground. The other two, however, managed to flee.

Police rushed critically wounded Jalal, son of Abdul Karim of Mirpur, to Orthopaedics Hospital, where he died at dawn yesterday.

Sagor, the other injured, with several pellets in the stomach, was undergoing treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital under police guard. He divulged the identity of the other two muggers-- Hakim and Russell.

Police recovered a locally made shooter gun from their possession and filed two cases with the police station concerned.

In Mohammadpur, gunmen shot Abdullah Al Mamun, peon of 43 No. Ward Commissioner Abul Hossain Hashu.

Mamun, resident of 53/3 North Adabar, was returning home with his cousin Hanif from Adabar bazar at about 11:45am when three gunmen intercepted them. They sprayed him with bullets and fled the scene.

Critically injured Mamun was rushed to the DMCH with four bullets in the head, one in the back and another one in the left hand. Doctors stated his condition to be critical.

His father Abdul Mannan told reporters at the DMCH that gangsters loyal to Nabi attacked his son as Mamun helped police in nabbing one of Nabi's henchmen Rafiq six months ago. Rafiq stands accused in the killing of the local commissioner's armed guard Robi at Jahuri Mahal in Mohammadpur.

"Members of the Nabi group earlier threatened my son not to work for the commissioner with whom they have a fierce rivalry," he said adding that the same gang took several attempts on Mamun's life in the last six months.