Dhaka–Plainclothes police arrested three active JMB men along with 16 hand-grenades, three powerful bombs, a suicide vest and huge explosives in a 14-hour nerve-wracking drive at a militant den on the top-floor of a six-storey building in the city’s Mirpur area on Thursday.They also arrested four suspected militants and seized huge ammunition during the drive that began around 2am and ended at 4pm without any casualties.
Tipped off that some members of the banned militant group JMB (Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh) were staying at an apartment of the six-storey building of Block-A of Road-9 of Mirpur Section-1, a DB team raided the building and conducted the marathon drive, said Deputy Commissioner (DB-South) Mushrukhur Rahman Khalid.
He said the law enforcers called the drive off around 4pm after defusing the grenades and explosives by a bomb disposal unit of the DB police.
Talking to UNB, Joint Commissioner (DB) Manirul Islam said around 200 hand-grades can be made by the explosive and other devices they recovered from the militant hideout.
He said the militants might have been making a plan to carry out massive subversive activities in the city.
The DB joint commissioner also said the recovered hand-grenades were similar to those live ones found recently after the Hoseni Dalan blasts and Kamrangir Char in the city. “We suspect grenades were supplied from this den.”
He said they are expecting to get important information from the arrested militants during grilling.
He, however, declined to give details about the arrested militants.
Manirul Islam said they came to know from a JMB man, who was arrested earlier by the DB on Wednesday night that some members of the banned militant group was preparing to carry out subversive acts at apartment.
Acting on the information, the DB team launched the raid on the house around 2am, he added.
Later, the DB team along with Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT), a special team of DB, bomb disposal unit and police from Shah Ali Police Station conducted another drive at an apartment on the top floor of the building.
They also evacuated the residents of other apartments in the building during the drive for their safety.
Sensing the DB men’s presence, inmates of the apartment blasted several handmade-grenades and tried to flee the scene.
However, the DB men detained three JMB men from the apartment finally and conducted another raid on the adjacent apartment and arrested four suspected militants, including two private university students Nahid and Mamun, a private company official Kamal and a college student Raj, from there.
DB officials said the explosives were kept in the kitchen, bedroom and other rooms of the apartment.
The arrested were taken to the DB’s Mintoo road headquarters for interrogation.
A resident of the six-story building said some youths took the top floor rent three months back identifying themselves as students.
