Tamim Chy among 3 killed in N'ganj raid

Three militants, including Gulshan café attack mastermind Tamim Chowdhury, were killed during a special raid of joint forces at a house in Narayanganj Sadar upazila on Saturday morning.

Sanowar Hossain, Assistant Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism unit, confirmed the matter to The Samakal.

Tipped off, DMP's Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit unearthed the JMB's den on the third floor of a three-storey building at Paikpara beside Boro Koborsthan around 6:00am and started the operation in the militant hideout, he said.

A joint team from CTTC unit, police headquarters and Narayanganj district police jointly carried out the operation titled “Operation Hit Strong 27”.

Sanwar said that they started the preparation around 2:30am and reached Narayanganj at 6:30am.

CTTC team asked the militants till 8:30am to surrender Sanwar said adding, “Our target was to arrest them alive.”

However, the militants started destroying all the documents, mobile phones and laptops around 8:30am, he added.

Following this, the CTTC team launched the one-hour long operation, said Sanwar.

During the operation, the militants hurled grenades at and opened fire on the law enforcers, he added.

After finishing the operation around 9:30am, the CTTC team entered the building when they found the bodies of two militants lying beside the main door of the apartment, Sanwar said.

However, the law enforcers found the body of Tamim in another room, he said.

The CTTC team recovered an AK-22 firearm, a small arm, several knives, several broken mobile phones and laptops.

The also recovered two undiffused grenades from the apartment.

Sanwar said five people rented the apartment two months back identifying two of themselves as the employees of Pharmaceuticals and one of them as a banker.

It was assumed that they rented the house after the deadly Gulshan attack, Sanwar said.

Earlier, DMP had announced a bounty of Tk20 lakh for information leading to the arrest of Tamim Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi-origin Canadian citizen.

With inputs from UNB