Police take position near a three-storey building, a suspected militant den, in the Borohat municipality in Moulvibazar on Wednesday DHAKA TRIBUNEMoulvibazar Sadar police station Sub-Inspector Abdul Aziz said three grenades were hurled at law enforcers from the building in Borohat in the morning.
Saifur’s cousin Atik said: “A family of two men, a woman and two children rented the bungalow-styled house in Nasirpur two months ago. They told us they work for RFL Group.
A caretaker named Jewel and his wife also live at the house, he said.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit Deputy Commissioner Mohibul Islam said: “We have information that several militants are hiding in these two dens.”
Local police and CTTC officials are present at the spot.
“Three or four militants may be hiding at the Borohat den and several other militants, including women, are holed up in the Nasirpur hideout,” Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told journalists at his office.
Moulvibazar is the hometown of militant Maj (sacked) Syed Ziaul Haq, the man behind the targeted killings of secular writers and activists last year.
Meanwhile, life in Sylhet city has started to return to normal after five days – except for Shibbari, Pathanpara, Mominkhola and Chandai, the surrounding areas of the Atia Mahal den, where law enforcement is on high alert.
Six people, including two police officials, died in two bomb blasts near the den and more than 40 people were injured.Shibbari still under lockdownIn Sylhet city, people told our correspondent, Mohammad Serajul Islam, that during the five days of the raid, many residents of the city did not leave their homes. Many businesses reopened on Wednesday and customers began to return.
However, the area surrounding the militant den in Shibbari is still under lockdown.
Military personnel have handed over Atia Mahal to law enforcement. Police, Armed Police Battalion and Rapid Action Battalion are surrounding the building.
At 4pm on Wednesday, the bomb disposal unit from Dhaka had not yet arrived, said Dakshin Surma police station Assistant Commissioner Mostafizur Rahman. Explosives made by the militants are still strewn out across the building making it almost inaccessible.
The bodies of two of the four militants killed in the raid are still in the building. Sources said the suicide vests on the bodies made them impossible to move.
The public are barred from going into a three square kilometre area around the building. Around Shibbari, police are checking the identification of many residents.
Dakshin Surma police station officials said they were checking national IDs of the residents.
The roads in the area are blocked with police checkposts. In most places, vehicles are being blocked. People are allowed to walk through but only after being patted down.
Many residents of the surrounding areas have not left their homes in the last few days. Some have stopped going to work. Others have moved away from the area temporarily.
Nantu Ranjan, a government employee from Shibbari, said since Friday everyone in the neighbourhood had been stuck in their homes. He had sent his family away to relatives.
Gas supply to the area has not yet been restored.Monji Ara’s family in SylhetThe father and elder brother of Monji Ara Parvin, a woman believed to be the female militant killed in Atia Mahal, arrived in Sylhet on Wednesday afternoon.
Monji Ara is the missing sister of Zubaira Yasmin, the female militant killed in the Sitakunda militant den raid on March 16.
Three of the children of this family from Baishari union under Naikkhyangchhari, Bandarban has been missing since last year.
In the evening, doctors at Sylhet Osmani Medical College Hospital collected DNA samples from Monji Ara’s father.Our Moulvibazar correspondent Saiful Islam and Bandarban correspondent S Basu Das also contributed to this story
