RAB guns down ‘top drug dealer in Tejgaon firefight’ as Dhaka crackdown begins

The Rapid Action Battalion or RAB claims to have killed a top drug dealer in a ‘gunfight’ at Tejgaon in Dhaka after nearly 50 deaths in similar operations in other parts of Bangladesh in a week.

Bachchu Mia, a sub-inspector at Dhaka Medical College Hospital police camp, said the doctors declared the man dead when the RAB brought his bullet-hit body in the wee hours of Friday.

Tejgaon Industrial Zone Police Station Sub-Inspector Mizanur Rahman told bdnews24.com a RAB team raided the BG Press school ground alley sometime after 12:30am following a tip-off that drug dealers were there.

The RAB personnel retaliated when the suspects began firing their guns and a man was found with bullet wounds at the scene after the ‘gunfight’, the police official said.  

He said doctors at DMCH declared the suspect, identified as ‘top drug dealer Kamrul’, dead. 

The elite force’s spokesman Mufti Mahmud Khan said in a SMS that two personnel of RAB-2 were injured in the ‘gun battle’.

He said a ‘huge’ amount of yaba pills, arms and ammunition were found in the drive.

Khan also said Kamrul, 35, was accused in more than 15 cases under narcotics control law and convicted in some of those.

He controlled the drug business in Tejgaon railway slum and Saattala slum at Mohakhali, according to RAB Media Wing Director Khan.   

The ‘firefight’ occurred hours after Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal inaugurated the antidrug crackdown in Dhaka on Thursday.

Intelligence agencies have prepared a list of ‘drug lords’ in the capital to conduct the drive, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Asaduzzaman Miah said at the opening of the drive.

In Mymensingh, around 1:45am, police detectives killed one ‘Rajon’, also identified as a ‘top drug dealer’, in a ‘gunfight’   

Detective Branch OC Ashikur Rahman said he headed a team in a drive on Purohit Parha following a tip-off that Rajon, ‘Alal’ and some other ‘top drug dealers’ of the city were holding a meeting there.

The police detective said he and Constable ‘Kawser’ were injured in the incident.

Rajon was found hit by bullets at the scene and doctors at Mymensingh Medical College Hospital declared him dead, the DB OC said.

The law enforcers found 400 yaba pills, three bullet cases and some sharp weapons at the scene, Ashikur said.

According to him, Rajon had eight cases against him, mostly on drugs charges.

Earlier, on Thursday night, police in Cox’s Bazar claimed a drug peddler was killed in a gunfight between two groups of drug traders at Maheshkhali.

Maheshkhali Police Station OC Pradip Kumar Das said they found 1,000 yaba pills, four guns and as many bullets at the scene.

At least 48 people were killed in antidrug operations in different parts of the country, except the capital, in past one week after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina declared a war on drugs.

After the deaths in antidrug operations earlier, the law enforcers claimed they only retaliated when the suspects fired their weapons.

Human-rights groups have doubted the law enforcers’ version of the gunfights and demanded separate investigations into every such incident, calling these ‘extrajudicial killings’.

The BNP fears the government will use the crackdown as a tool to suppress dissent before the general election by the end of this year.

Families of several of the dead suspects claimed the law enforcers killed them for not paying money.

The government, however, has defended the law-enforcing agencies, saying these incidents were gunfights.

[Additional reporting by Cox's Bazar Correspondent Sankar Barua Rumi]