RAB Intelligence chief flown to Singapore for treatment

The Intelligence wing chief of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), who was severely injured in Saturday's blasts in Sylhet, has been flown to Singapore for better treatment.

Six persons died and at least 40 others were injured in two blasts outside the building in Sylhet, which has been surrounded by security forces since the early hours of Friday.

Lt Col Abul Kalam Azad is one of the 43 people injured, many seriously, near the militant hideout where the army commandos began the assault to bust it Saturday morning.

RAB spokesperson Mufti Mahmud Khan told bdnews24.com that an air-ambulance carrying Azad, one of his relatives, and a doctor left Dhaka for Singapore at 8pm on Sunday. He will be admitted to the Mount Elizabeth Hospital.

Azad, who went through multiple surgeries at Sylhet's MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital, was airlifted to Dhaka and admitted to the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) early on Sunday.

Khan, who heads the RAB's Legal and Media Wing, said the second RAB officer injured in the blasts, Major Azad, was recovering at the CMH.

At the early hours of Friday, the Sylhet police and the counter-terrorism unit surrounded a complex housing two buildings at Shibbarhi at the outskirts of the city.

Reinforcement from the counter-terrorism unit, SWAT personnel and senior RAB officers from Dhaka joined them the same day.

Late on Friday, a team of from the Sylhet-based Para Commando Battalion reached the spot.

A RAB member injured in the twin blasts brought in to the MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital in Sylhet.

A second team of commandos joined them Saturday morning, when the army took charge of the assault to round off the 30-hour siege to the complex housing a five-storey and a four-story building.

The two buildings have 30 flats with as many families living in them.

Commandos evacuated 78 civilians, who had been stranded in the building since police sealed-off the complex.

Gunfire and explosions could be heard from inside the building in phases on Saturday after the commandos moved in.

Around 5:40 pm, the gunfire and blasts stopped, when the army told the media that civilians have been rescued from the building.

There was no official comment on whether any of the militants were captured or killed at the den. An army spokesperson said that the "operation is not over yet".

Soon after the army's media briefing, a bomb exploded at one end of the street to the building. As soon as security forces rushed to the scene another bomb went off.

The blasts left two police inspectors and four civilians killed.

It seems these were 'reinforcement' came for the militants who are cornered by the army commandos at the hideout where the operation is about to be in its final stage.