Two female militant suspects surrender in Narsingdi

Two female suspects have turned themselves in to the security forces at the Nilufa Villa building in Narsingdi’s Madhabdi, according to police officers at the scene.

Their surrender brought the 41-hour operation to an end on Wednesday without bloodshed.

The two women, clad in black burkas, were escorted by law enforcers to a special ambulance around 2:45pm. They were also wearing helmets at the time.

A police official at the scene told bdnews24.com that the security personnel had brought down a wall on the fifth floor of the building and entered the flat. It was then that the two women agreed to surrender.

Police’s Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit (CTTC) chief Monirul Islam named the two women as Khadiza Akter Meghna and Israt Jahan Mou.

They identified as Abdullah Al Bangali and Aklima Rahman Moni, a couple killed during a SWAT operation on a five-storey building at Bhagirathpur about two kilometres away from Nilufa Villa near the Dhaka-Sylhet Highway.

Abdullah was the chief of Neo-JMB, the revived faction of Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh, according to Monirul.

His wife Moni, and Meghna and Mou were students of Manarat International University in Dhaka.

Police surrounded the building at Madhabdi and another one at Bhagirathpur in Narsingdi on Monday night.

The three female suspects were arrested along with another woman in an Anti-Terrorism Act case at Mirpur Model Police Station in the capital a month after the deadly attack on a cafe at Gulshan in Dhaka on July 1, 2016.

They did not return home afterwards and got engaged in militant activities again after being freed on bail seven to eight months later, according to Monirul.

He said one of the surrendered suspect’s husband is a top leader of the Neo-JMB while the other was preparing for marriage.

File Photo: RAB arrested militant suspects Aklima Rahman Moni, Khadiza Akter Meghna and Israt Jahan Mou, former students of Manarat International University, and Dhaka medical College intern Istisnat Akter Oishi in August 2016.

Earlier in the morning, Monirul had said the suspected militants would be asked to surrender and the SWAT raid would commence only if they did not surrender, he had said.

Police personnel from the CTTC and the Lawful Interception Cell (LIC) surrounded the two buildings at 9pm on Monday.

The type of explosives indicated that the dead were members of the Neo-JMB and planning a big attack, CTTC chief Monirul said after the raid in Bhagirathpur on Tuesday.