Police have raided two hostels of the Chittagong College dominated by the Islami Chhatra Shibir and nabbed 72 inmates.
Shibir is the student affiliate of the Jamaat-e-Islami and police say those detained belong to the organisation.
Police say a lot of weapons and ammunition have been seized from the two hostels.
Detective Branch’s Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADC) SM Tanvir Arafat told bdnews24.com that police raided the Suhrawardy and Sher-e-Bangla hostels of the Chittagong College just past midnight.
He said 72 Shibir activists were arrested between 2am to 6am during the raid.
Arafat said one Ak-22 training rifle and some other weapons were seized from the staff quarter area alongside the hostels.
They include three pistols, one .303 Lee Enfield rifle, three single barrel guns, one double barrel gun and around 100 rounds of ammunition, he said. Five rocket flares were also recovered.
After the search at the Chittagong College, police raided the Mohsin College on the opposite side.
No one was detained from the hostels, but eight were nabbed from a cave on a hill in the college complex, said police.
Containers of petrol, explosives, bomb-making materials and sharp weapons were recovered from different areas of the Mohsin College campus.
The raids on both colleges were based on a tip-off that those involved in vandalism in the city were hiding in the institutions, said Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) chief Abdul Jalil Mandal.
“The army uses Ak 22 rifle for training…this place has been turned into a cantonment,” the CMP commissioner said while speaking to the press at Mohsin College.
He said they were probing whether college teachers were involved in gathering and keeping the arms on the campus.
Incidents of arson, firebombing on vehicles and the blasting of handmade bombs have been reported from across the country, including the port city, amid the BNP-led front’s agitation.
Over a hundred people have died — mostly due to firebombing of vehicles — in the last two and half months.
Meanwhile, activists of the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami have died during what the police describe as ‘shootouts’.
A Shibir activist in Chittagong died after a bomb exploded in his hands.
Source: Bd News24
