Police have ruled out the involvement of any extremist outfit in the bomb blast at Pallabi Police Station that injured five people.
The law-enforcement agency arrested three men with firearms and a ‘weighing machine’, packed with explosives, during a raid in the early hours of Wednesday. Police have described the arrestees as ‘contract killers’.
“Police had information that they were planning to kill a political leader. The incident is under investigation now,” said Walid Hossain, deputy commissioner (media) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.
However, the police did not provide any further details about the suspects or the person they were allegedly planning to kill.
Asked about their alleged target, Walid said, “The person isn’t a big politician. The issue stemmed from an enmity between local rivals — that’s what the suspects have told police during interrogation.”
Informed of the presence of a ‘group of miscreants’, Pallabi police raided the Kalshi graveyard around 2 am on Wednesday, Krishna Pada Roy, additional commissioner of DMP, said in a media briefing.
“The three were arrested during the raid but there were others who managed to escape. Police recovered two pistols, four rounds of bullets and a device that looked like a weighing machine.”
During the interrogation, the arrestees revealed that the device had a bomb inside.
Police informed the bomb disposal unit which inspected the device in the duty officer’s room. Later, another specialist team was called in but the explosive went off before it could arrive, Commissioner Shafiqul Islam told bdnews24.com.
A police inspector and four others were injured after the bomb exploded, creating panic among the people in the neighbourhood. They were subsequently taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
The incident came after the Police Headquarters alerted all of its units to the threat of a terror attack ahead of Eid-ul-Azha.
Police did not find any evidence linking any militant unit with the incident, said Roy.
“The three arrestees are involved in criminal activities. We’re running an investigation,” he said.
Source: bdnews24.com
