Sitakunda Raid: Police quizzing 'militant couple'

Police yesterday recovered 12 bombs and a huge cache of bomb-making materials from the militants' hideout “Chhayaneer” in Sitakunda where four militants were killed during a raid on Thursday.

The militants' den was sealed off at the end of an operation named “Assault-16”.

A bomb disposal unit along with forces from the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) entered the den around 11:45am yesterday and searched the three-room flat on the ground floor in Premtala area till 4:30pm.

As a large amount of explosives littered the rooms, the den was sealed off on Thursday night to avert any untoward explosion, said Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Shafiqur Rahman of Chittagong Range. 

During the search, 12 bombs, five jars each containing 40 litres of Hydrogen Peroxide and 50 litres of acid were found in the front room of the flat, said the DIG.

“It will take several days to deactivate the bombs,”he added.

The police have meanwhile started interrogating the militant couple -- Jasim alias Johirul Islam and Arjina alias Rajia Sultana -- arrested at another militants' den on Wednesday.

The couple were taken to Sitakunda Police Station around 2:00am yesterday after a Chittagong court granted 12 days' remand for each in two separate cases filed in connection with recovering arms and explosives from “Sadhan Kutir”.

Officer-in-Charge Md Iftekhar Hasan of Sitakunda police said they had learned that another militant couple -- Md Kamal Uddin and his wife Jobaida -- who were killed during the raid at “Chhayaneer” were the brother-in-law and sister of Jasim. They both hailed from Baisari of Naikhyangchhari upazila in Bandarban.

Jasim had rented the houses at “Sadhan Kutir” and “Chhayaneer” providing fake NIDs to the owners, said police source.

“We are interrogating Jasim and his wife to find out the identities of the other militants killed during the operation,” said the OC.

The police on Wednesday conducted the drive at “Sadhan Kutir” in Amirabad area of Namarbazar in the same upazila and arrested the militant couple with a pistol, grenades and explosives.

After gleaning information from them, the law enforcers got existence of another den at “Chhayaneer” in Premtala area.