Rab cordon off ‘militant hideout’ in city

Members of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) have cordoned off a house at Mirpur Mazar Road under Darus Salam Police Station in the capital suspecting it as a militant hideout.

Tipped off, a Rab team cordoned off the six-storey building on the south side of Shaheed Buddijibi Graveyard from 12am, said Assistant Superintendent of Police Unu Mong, also operation officer of Rab-4, reports UNB.

Locals said they heard the sounds of bomb explosions and gunfight from the house.

Mufti Mahmud Khan, Rab director (legal and media wing), said 65 people have been evacuated from the building. Abdullah, a suspected militant, is staying on the 4th floor of the building.

Earlier, police arrested two suspected militants conducting a drive in Tangail district. The arrested militants gave information about Abdullah. Besides, they had secret information, said the Rab official.

Besides, an elderly female relative of the suspected militant came out of the building.

Saqlain Russell, a presenter of a private TV channel My TV and a resident of the area, wrote on his Facebook account, “We [first] thought it was a transformer blast. But now it looks like it’s a bomb explosion.

Our room soon got full of smoke while the glasses of the building adjacent to us have been shattered.

Rab and police [members] have cordoned the area off. We’ve taken shelter between the flats in fear of a possible drive by law enforcers.

We’re suspecting that something is happening in the next building. We’ve heard gunshots every now and then.”

Locals also said that the building owned by one Habibullah Bahar Azad has five flats in each floor. The owner of the house used to live on the  2nd floor.