Raid at Sylhet extremists’ den starts

Joint forces, including an army team, started an operation at a suspected hideout of extremists in a building at Dakkhin Pathanpara in Sylhet city on Saturday morning.

The raid, ‘Operation Spring Rain’ started around 8:40am, our correspondent reported.

Law enforcing agencies had cordoned the building off since early Friday and a team of army from Jalalabad Cantonment in Sylhet reached the spot around 7:45pm, witnesses said.

Police officials said that they were suspecting that two to five religious extremists were hiding in the twin building at Dakkhin Pathanpara near Shibbari Bazar of Dakkhin Surma. 

At about 4:00pm on Friday, four Special Weapon And Tactics units reached the spot from Dhaka, said Sylhet Metropolitan Police commissioner Golam Rabbani. 

Earlier at around 3:00am, a joint force team comprising the counter-terrorism unit and metropolitan police cordoned off the twin building, Atia Mahal.

They locked the door of an apartment in the ground floor of the five-storey building, in which the law enforcers believed that the suspected extremists were staying.

The police commissioner also asked the suspected extremists using a public address system at about 1:00pm to surrender.

Building owner Ustar Ali, a retired customs department employee, said in the morning that one Kawsar Ahmad introducing himself as an audit officer of PRAN-RFL Company rented the apartment in January. 

‘Kawsar introduced a young woman Marzina as his wife,’ Ustar added.

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