Four surrender during RAB raid on Ashulia ‘militant den’

Four men have surrendered to the Rapid Action Battalion during an operation on a suspected militant den in Dhaka’s Ashulia.

Savar Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 15 July 2017, 10:38 PM
Updated : 16 July 2017, 11:38 AM

The four suspects were the only residents of the building, said RAB Law and Media Division Director Mufti Mahmud Khan.

A RAB-4 team surrounded the house at Noyarhat’s Chourabali neighbourhood on the outskirts of Dhaka around 1am on Sunday.

Members of a RAB special force and a bomb disposal unit arrived on the scene on Sunday morning and had begun preparations for the final raid.

A RAB APC was seen near the building around 9am. A helicopter was also seen circling overhead. Then, around 11am, a sustained exchange of gunfire could be heard from the scene.

One of the men in the building surrendered around 12pm, Khan said.

“He said that three other men were inside the building and that there were no women and children inside. The remaining three surrendered within an hour.”

A third man turned himself in around 12:30pm and the fourth surrendered around 1pm.

The bomb dispersal unit entered the building after the suspects surrendered, said RAB-4 Company Commander Maj Abdul Hakim.

The full details of the operation would be available at a press conference later, he said.

"We had been searching for militants in the area for a few days,” operation chief RAB-4 Commanding Officer Additional DIG Lutful Kabir toldbdnews24.com. “The house was cordoned off once we confirmed the location of the hideout.”

Those inside had opened fire on RAB when they realised the situation, he said. Another round of firing began around 6am and explosives were thrown from inside the building, leading to RAB to retaliate, he said.

Though RAB had called on the ‘militants’ to surrender since the start of the raid, they only retaliated with insults and gunshots, Kabir had said.

The owner of the building, Ibrahim, was detained and questioned. RAB officials say that a man named Azad, who identified himself as a garment worker, had rented the house two months ago.

The residents of the area were evacuated, Ashulia Police Station OC Abdul Awal, who was on the scene, told bdnews24.com.