Raid on 3 more militant dens
Another day, another militant hideout. Three to be precise.
Hours after the nearly five-day siege at a militant den in Sylhet ended on Tuesday evening, police said they tracked down three more terror hideouts -- two in Sylhet's neighbouring district Moulvibazar and one in Comilla.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Police cordoned off the two Moulvibazar dens in Nasirpur and Borohat areas early hours yesterday and the one in Comilla in the afternoon.
Some 10 to 12 suspected militants are believed to be holed up in the two Moulvibazar houses, some 20km apart. Both the houses are owned by Saifur Rahman Shakil, a Bangladeshi man living in England for 30 years, police and local sources said.
When police were preparing to launch an operation on the Nasirpur den in the afternoon, Comilla police said they discovered a militant hideout in Comilla municipality. At least two militants are said to be hiding there with huge explosives.
Police may launch an operation on the Borohat den today. Any offensive on the hideout in Comilla is not expected before tomorrow, as the city goes to municipal polls today, according to police sources.
After the overnight and the daylong siege, police launched an assault on the Nasirpur den in the evening, but suspended it after an hour without any breakthrough.
A team of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) started the operation around 6:30pm. During the 70-minute raid, more than 300 shots were fired but police could not confirm if any of the suspected militants were neutralised, report our correspondents, who were about 300 metres from the scene.
Police did not allow reporters or locals to go near any of the hideouts while the district administration clamped Section 144 around 2km radius of the two dens in Moulvibazar. Section 144 prohibits gathering of more than five people.
"We did not enter the house as dark fell. We could not see anything inside it," said a police officer who took part in the operation. "There was no response from inside the house during the assault."
Earlier in the morning, however, when law enforcers tried to approach the two houses, the militants charged bombs and opened fire at them, police said.
Through loudspeakers, police also asked the militants to surrender in vain.
The operation at Nasirpur will resume this morning, Deputy Inspector General of police in Sylhet Kamrul Ahsan told The Daily Star.
Two to three militants may be hiding in the Borohat den while eight to nine in Nasirpur, said Mohibul Islam, deputy commissioner of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit (CTTC) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.
Earlier, a CTTC official said their teams were working in Moulvibazar on information that there were one or more terror dens.
Talking to reporters in Dhaka, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said there might be one or two top militants in Moulvibazar hideouts.
Only on Tuesday evening, army Para Commandos ended their anti-terror assault codenamed “Operation Twilight” on a house called Atia Mahal at Shibbari of Sylhet. Four militants, including a woman, were killed during the operation.
Also, four civilians and two police officers were killed in a twin bombing on Saturday night near Atia Mahal. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bomb attack.
All this comes in the wake of two suspected suicide bombings in Dhaka -- one inside a Rab barrack and another near a police checkpoint close to the airport.
In recent months, police and Rab conducted several raids in Dhaka and Chittagong, killing or arresting some top militant leaders belonging to what they call “Neo JMB”, an offshoot of the now banned JMB which carried out several high-profile attacks in 2001-2005.
MOULVIBAZAR HIDEOUTS
Police cordoned off the house in Borohat around 1:30am yesterday. A few hours later, they sealed off the other house in Nasirpur.
Police said one Belal Ahmed rented the ground floor of the Borohat house in January, identifying himself as an employee of a private company. Later, he told the caretaker, Azir Mia, that some of his relatives wanted to stay in the house. The caretaker told him that the relatives could rent the Nasirpur house, which they did.
Jewel Ahmed, caretaker of the Nasirpur house, said a man named Kamrul Talukder alias Mahfuz rented the house in February.
The man identified himself as a manager of a private company and said that his wife, parents-in-law and sister-in-law would stay with him.
Police later found he gave a fake identity.
Jewel said that Azir Mia, the caretaker of the house in Borohat, informed him about the police raid on that house.
Jewel then knocked on the door of Mahfuz's flat in the early morning and someone opened it. When he asked whether they were militants, the person shut the door and a few minutes later hurled a bomb, police said.
Till afternoon, the militants hurled bombs at the law enforcers, police said.
Police first tried to close in on the Borohat den around 6:30am, but backed away as the militants opened fire. Since then there were occasional exchange of gunshots throughout the day, according to police.
Sporadic explosions rocked the area throughout the day, but the source of the explosions was not clear as journalists were not allowed to go near the building, our district correspondent said.
Moinuddin, a grocer, said, “When I came to my shop around 6:30am, I saw many policemen in the area. I heard sounds of gunshots and then police asked us to shut our shops. Then I shut down my shop.”
COMILLA DEN
Amid the raid in Moulvibazar, police in Comilla cordoned off an under-construction three-storey building around 2:00pm following information from the Police Headquarters that some suspected militants were hiding there with explosives.
The house at Gondhomoti is owned by Delwar Hossain, 42, who lived in Saudi Arabia for several years, said his father Ahmed Ali.
Police detained his younger brother Saddam Hossain for interrogation.
Law enforcers evacuated 10 residents, including women and children, from the building.
Residents of six houses close to the building also left for safety on police instructions.
“We are sure four to five militant suspects are inside the building. There are bombs powerful enough to bring down the building,” said Shah Abid Hossain, superintendent of Comilla police.
Police sealed off half a kilometre radius of the building.
Delwar, the house owner, said two youths, aged about 22, rented a flat on the ground floor early this month identifying themselves as clothes traders. They, however, did not provide copies of their identity cards.
Some students and a border guard member with his family were staying in different units of the first floor, Delwar said.
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