Dhaka – After 111 hours of tense end of operation Twilight by the law enforcing agencies on Tuesday in Sylhet at Atia Mahal, the block of flats were remained to be fully sanitized by the police bomb disposal squads on Wednesday.
The block of flats were disposed off the neo four JMB militants holed up there with the Army Para Commandos storming it.The Commando operation chief Brigadier General Fakhrul Ahsan declared the closure of their operation during which four militants including a young woman were killed.
He announced the closure of the operation and said, the police would look after the place .
But the neo JMB militants hideout at Atia Mahal block of flats bore all the signs of an operation to crash the militants who used their guns and IEDs still remained unsafe for all, including the police to sanitize it until arrival of their bomb disposal squad from Dhaka to clear the booby traps of IEDs that the well trained militants used to secure the hideout before the commandos stormed it.
Our Sylhet correspondent reported at 6pm on Wednesday that bomb disposal squads were yet to reach Atia Mahal.
Meanwhile, militants trying to regroup around were startled by the police cordoning off their new hideout of a tin shed house on the Sylhet-Maulvibazar highway in Maulvibazar Sadar yesterday morning.
A group of seven to eight militants who rented the homes from the caretaker of a man who lives in London were believed to have been hiding there.When police tried to break into the house they were resisted by these militants with gun fire and bursting IEDs, the correspondent Liaquat Shah Faridi reported.
But the police have cordoned off the hideout, cutting of the gas and electricity connections there.
As the siege continued the police also kept the curious onlookers far away from the operation sites, to avert any recurrence of Sylhet incidents during the siege of Atia Mahal, in which 6 people, including two police Inspectors were killed in explosions of powerful bombs believed to have been planted there or exploded with remote control devices as curious onlookers gathered around the operation site.
The explosions also wounded over a dozen,including the RAB intelligence chief Lt.Col Abul Kalam Azad. He was flown to Singapore for treatment after he sustained severe head injuries. A splinter of the bombs lodged inside his brain piercing his eyes.
But one of the brilliant officers in RAB, who was responsible for busting many militant hideouts, leading to many arrests was in life support and would be brought back to Dhaka for admission to CMH late yesterday. – Staff Reporter
