Staff Reporter :Based on secret information by police, divers of Fire Service and Civil Defense Department recovered huge arms and ammunitions from Diabari canal at the city’s Uttara area on Saturday afternoon.Divers recovered at least 97 Chinese pistols, 1,000 bullets, 189 magazines and 10 bayonets from the canal, Liton Ahmed, senior station officer of Uttara Fire Station told The New Nation yesterday.He said, “Our divers have recovered the huge cache of firearms and ammos, in a search operation, in the canal. The arms and ammunitions were found at the bed of the canal wrapped in bags”. The recovery of arms and ammos was made barely several hours after the killing of Golam Faizullah Fahim, the alleged attacker of Madaripur college teacher Ripon Chakraborty, in a “shootout” early Saturday.Fahim, who lived in Uttara’s Dakshinkhan area, was caught by the locals while fleeing after the attack on Wednesday afternoon and was later handed over to police.Three youths, including Fahim, hacked Ripon Chakrabarty, a mathematics teacher at the Government Nazimuddin College, with sharp weapons on Wednesday afternoon in an attempt to kill him.A highly placed police source told The New Nation on Saturday night that police asked the Fire Service and Civil Defense Department to conduct the search operation in the canal after getting information from Fahim.”Fahim was involved with the banned Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. He gave sensational information regarding their activities during police interrogation,” said the police source. Earlier, a Madaripur court sent him on police remand to facilitate interrogation in custody.”Acting on a tip off, Fire Service personnel in presence of law enforcement agencies started searching the canal, near a Buddhist temple, on Saturday afternoon,” said DMP Deputy Commissioner (Uttara zone) Bidhan Tripura.He said, until evening, 97 foreign pistols, 189 magazines, over 1,000 rounds of bullets and 10 bayonets were found.”The weapons and ammunition were kept in eight travel bags,” he said, adding that they would continue the search operation throughout the night.Regarding the witnesses claim that several men arrived in car and dump the bags in the canal, Bidhan said, adding that e investigating the matter.A team of firefighters was conducting the drive at the canal of Uttara till filing the report at 10.30pm.
