Staff Reporter :
A woman was killed and four more received bullet injuries in a shootout between Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and suspected drug dealers in Cox’s Bazar’s Teknaf Upazila early Thursday.
The deceased has been identified as Jaheda Khatun, 50, a resident of Myanmar’s Maungdaw Township. Those who received gunshot injuries are Maungdaw residents Rasheda Khatun, 25, Mojuma Khatun, 49, Mohammed Kashem, 70, and Mohammad Shafiq, 20, a resident of Teknaf. Cox’s Bazar Sector Commander of the BGB Colonel Md Rafiqul Haque said the incident took place on the estuary of the Naf River near the Shaha Pori Island around 4:00am.
The victims were smuggling Yaba by an engine-run boat, the BGB official said.
They opened fire on the BGB patrol team while trying to enter Bangladeshi waters, the border guards retaliated, injuring the five, he said. “They were taken to Teknaf Hospital, where doctors declared Jaheda dead. The other victims have been transferred to Cox’s Bazar Sadar Hospital,” the BGB official said.
He said the BGB has confiscated the trawler with a ‘huge consignment’ of methamphetamine based yaba tablets. Yaba is usually smuggled into Bangladesh through 45 routes of Cox’s Bazar district, bordering Myanmar’s Rakhine State, according to intelligence agencies.
