Staff Reporter :
The police raid on a suspected militant hideout at Ganda in Savar on the outskirts of the capital ended with the seizure of seven grenades and three suicide vests.
The raid was conducted late Friday and ended around 2:30pm on Saturday.
Superintendent of Police (SP) Shah Mizan Shafiur Rahman briefed the media on the feed back in the afternoon.
The Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit initially surrounded a five-storey building in the town’s Genda around 7:30pm on Friday and raided a flat, but they discovered that the terror suspects had left it in the morning. Two hours later, security forces raided a six-storey building in the same neighbourhood, the SP said.
That raid led to a discovery of some explosives inside a flat in the second building, Rahman said.
CTTC Deputy Commissioner (DC) Mahibul Islam Khan said that the bomb disposal unit was called in to search the flat for explosives on Saturday morning,
Sound of nine explosions was heard between 12:10pm and 1:57pm after the bomb disposal team broke into a room of one of the suspected militant dens on the first floor of the six-storey building, the DC said.
With the bomb squad still raiding the flat, security forces descended on a tin-shed house nearby, he said.
One of the tenants of the tin-shed house, Mili Akter said that a man known as Kamal rented six rooms of the house a few days ago. Kamal and five others, who used to live in the rooms, were not seen in the last few days.
Police questioned a neighbour, Kabir Hossain, who later told the media, “Kamal rented rooms of the tin-shed house to manufacture cosmetics. Kamal had told me that he manufactures cream and hair gel, but I don’t know what he actually did.”
Police also found equipment used in making cosmetics on the site.
Savar Police Inspector Golam Nabi said they questioned Kabir as locals reported that they saw him speaking with Kamal. Locals said the six-storey building was owned by an expatriate and his brother Sakib, who was also quizzed by the police.
Sakib said a man and a woman, who identified themselves as a married couple, rented a flat on the first floor.
Police said they fled just before the raid conducted on Friday night. “We found the food in the kitchen warm, indicating that they escaped just before we moved in,” Detective Branch Inspector ASM Sayed told the media.
Earlier on Friday night, a CTTC team raided a suspected militant den on the ground floor of a five-storey building, adjacent to the two houses, with assistance from the Savar Model Police Station.
A woman and two children were rescued from the house, said the on-duty officer of Savar Police Station.
They were taken to police custody, he said.
Filing of a case with the police station in this connection was under process till filing of this report around 9:30pm.
