Firing was so heavy it seemed we will not survive, recalls resident of Dhaka building raided by police

A witness to the nightlong raid on a militant hideout at Dhaka’s Kalyanpur says that he thought he would not survive.

Golam Mujtaba Dhrubabdnews24.com
Published : 26 July 2016, 07:45 AM
Updated : 26 July 2016, 03:22 PM

Nine persons have been killed and one captured alive after police mounted ‘Operation Storm 26’ early morning on Tuesday to smoke out militants holed up in an apartment at a six-storey building.

Allama Iqbal Anik, a building resident, said there were four flats on each floor, most of them rented out to ‘bachelors’.

The family of the building-owner lived on the first floor, he said.

Anik, who lived with eight others in a fifth-floor flat, said that they sensed police presence around the building at about 12:30am.

Shooting erupted around 2am, when police tried to enter.

Anik and his roommates hid in the kitchen.

“We were there the whole night. We heard shots being fired frequently. It was scary.

“All hell broke loose, we thought we will not survive,” he told bdnews24.com. 

Anik said he sent an SMS to an acquaintance - a journalist - when the firing got heavy.

“I wrote him, ‘Save us, we are trapped in our home during the raid’,” he said.

Anik, who comes from the northern district of Kurhigram, has been living in that flat for the past five years.

Police said the suspected militants rented rooms in fourth-floor apartments. Seven of the bodies were found lying in the corridor and two others in separate rooms.

All of the suspected militants wore black dresses, said Counter-terrorism unit’s senior officer Sanowar Hossain.

“We have found some more unpacked black dresses and a black flag. A grenade and a pistol had been seized from the apartment,” said Additional Deputy Commissioner Hossain.

Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Hoque too confirmed the colour of the clothes the militants wore.

“The militants came out of the apartment firing their way out in an attempt to escape. They wore black dresses, had turbans on their heads, and backpacks with them,” Hoque told reporters at the scene of the raid.

He said the militants were part of the ‘same JMB group’, which attacked a cafe at Dhaka’s upscale neighbourhood of Gulshan on the night of Jul 1.