Bangladeshi anti-terror raid paused for night after explosions

Police have suspended the SWAT operation at a suspected militant hideout at Shibganj in Chapainawabganj for the night.

The specialised police unit’s Deputy Commissioner Proloy Kumar Joarder briefed the media at the site around two hours after the raid was launched on Wednesday evening.

He said the operation will resume on Thursday morning.

The suspects hurled a grenade at the SWAT members and four to five explosions were heard from inside the house during the raid, Joarder said.

Assistant DC of police’s counterterrorism unit Abdul Mannan told bdnews24.com at the scene that at least four people, including women and children, are believed to be holed out in the house.

The law enforcers have put up lights around the house with a power generator because the power connections to the area were cut off when police’s local and counterterrorism units cordoned off the house early in the morning.

Counterterrorism unit Assistant DC Mohammad Ali told bdnews24.com that four explosions were heard from inside the house around 8:45pm.

Reporters gathered around 500 metres from the house heard ceaseless gunshots at the site around 6:40pm after the SWAT operation codenamed ‘Eagle Hunt’ began.

The SWAT team was airlifted from Dhaka to the site at Shibnagar-Trimohoni village in the afternoon.

“We used loudspeakers to communicate with them during the day, but they didn’t respond,” he said.

Two ambulances and a fire-truck were brought to the site in the afternoon.

The security forces surrounded the house following intel that the house was being used by suspected militants, Chapainawabganj Superintendent of Police Mujahidul Islam said.

Counterterrorism unit Deputy Commissioner Mohibul Islam said police retaliated when the suspects fired from the house after it was cordoned off.

Police are not certain about the amount of explosives, arms and ammunition stashed in the house.

Gomostapur Circle ASP Mainul Islam told bdnews24.com they believe four persons, including a militant named Rafiqul Alam Abu, 30, his wife and their child are in the house.

“We have told them to surrender. People in nearby houses have been evacuated,” he said earlier in the afternoon.

The authorities have restricted public movement in the area. Shibganj Upazila Executive Officer Shafiqul Islam said the curbs would continue until the end of the operation.

Who is Abu?

Jentu Biswas, 75, who owns the house in a mango orchard, lives with his family in another house nearby.

Locals said he let one Rafiqul Alam Abu and his family stay in the house without charging them rent three months ago.

Abu’s parents live in Chachra village, around half a kilometre from Trimohani.

His mother Fulsana Begum told reporters in the morning that Abu, a spice hawker by profession, has two daughters. They are 8 and 6 years old.

Fulsana said Abu, who studied in a local madrasa, had been staying in his in-laws’ house at Abbas Bazar in the same Upazila since marrying Sumaiya Khatun nine years ago.

Abu is the eldest of her two sons and one daughter.

Before cordoning off the house at Trimohoni, police surrounded and raided three other houses in Abbas Bazar. No one was arrested in the raid, police said.

Recent raids in the Chittagong and Sylhet divisions were followed by an operation on a home in Jhenaidah last Friday. Police say they recovered ‘huge explosives and bomb-making materials’ in the raid.

Another operation was conducted in Rajshahi on Tuesday, but police found no militant there.