Three people, including a woman, were found killed as raid on a suspected extremists’ den at Barahat in Moulvibazar district town ended on Saturday.
At a briefing near the operation site, Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit chief Monirul Islam claimed that one of the deceased was involved in the bomb explosions near Atia Mahal in Sylhet on March 25.
The bombs, exploded during army commandos’ operation in the five-storey Atia Mahal, killed seven people, including Rapid Action Battalion intelligence director Lieutenant Colonel Abul Kalam Azad and two police inspectors.
Monirul also claimed they had planned to catch the suspects alive but could not make it.
Police officials at the briefing said that the suspected female extremist, found killed, hurled two ‘grenades’ from the rooftop of the building while it was cordoned off by cops on March 29.
They did not disclose the identities of the suspects but said that one Mahfuz rented two houses – one at Barahat and the other at Fatehpur village – from Saiful Islam, a Bangladeshi expatriate in London, in January saying that his relative Bellal, working with RFL Group, would live there.
Moulvibazar superintendent of police Shah Jalal said that explosions tore to pieces the bodies of the three extremists and suicide vests were found with the bodies.
He suspected that the suspects blew up themselves on Friday as bad stink was coming out of the bodies.
According to police officials, the female extremist seemed about 25-year-old while the two males were between 30 and 35 years. Post mortem examination would be conducted today at the district hospital.
A senior police official in Moulvibazar told New Age that they had specific information about one extremist Nazim alias Asharaful, who went missing from Sonaimuri upazila in Noakhali over one year ago, and he was among the deceased.
An official at lawful interception cell at police headquarters said that they spotted Atia Mahal and the Barahat house tracking communications between the two houses in Sylhet and Moulvibazar.
Neighbours said that a person with thin beard lived in the under-construction duplex building at Barahat and was hardly seen talking to them.
A neighbour, Abdul Mumith, said that the tenant was seen saying prayers as Ahle Hadith followers did.
Mumith said they saw no suspicious activities in the building but its residents had no contacts with local people. ‘I saw a woman in burka and few others were seen coming and going,’
Counter-terrorism unit chief Monirul said that since operations against extremists killed at least nine officials including Abul Kalam Azad, they conducted the latest operation very consciously which took little more time than usual.
Earlier on March 29, at least seven people were killed during an operation at the Fatehpur house in Moulvibazar. Post-mortem examinations ascertained on Friday that four children were among the seven people.
At a briefing in Moulvibazar on March 30, Monirul said that ‘Operation Hit Back’ at the Fatehpur ‘hideout’
of a faction of banned Islamist outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh left at least seven people of a family killed.
The identities of the deceased could not be established, but counter-terrorism officials said that top extremist recruiter Sohel Rana, 32, was among them.
Counter-terrorism officials said that they got leads to the hideouts from detained extremists Jahirul Islam Jasim and his wife Razia Sultana Arjina, arrested at Sitakunda on March 15.
The improvised explosive devices seized during the raid on a house at Sitakunda in Chittagong on March 15 and unexploded explosive carried by Ayaat Al Hasan, who reportedly blew up himself near airport crossing in Dhaka on March 24, were similar to those seized from the Fatehpur house.
New Age correspondent in Comilla reported that a bomb disposal team defused 10 bombs and two grenades at a den of extremists at Kotbari Saturday afternoon.
Comilla Detective Branch officer-in-charge Manjur Alam confirmed the information.
The drive at the suspected hideout resumed at about 9:00am after the raid code-named ‘Operation Strike Out’ was suspended on Friday evening. A team of Special Weapons and Tactics from Chittagong conducted the operation at the house owned by Delwar Hossain, a pick-up van driver, since Friday morning.
Counter-terrorism officials on March 29 seized the house near Bara Kabarsthan of Gandamati at Kotbari suspecting that a number of extremists were staying there with huge arms and ammunition.
Source: New Age
