Four people, including two Rohingyas, were killed on Monday in separate incidents which have been described as gunfights by authorities in Dhaka and Cox’s Bazar districts.
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police said that two suspected muggers were killed in a shootout with the Detective Branch (DB) around 2.30am on the Kuril Bishwa Road in the capital’s Khilkhet.
The victims were identified as ‘Nannu’ and ‘Mosharraf,’ by DB’s Deputy Commissioner Mashiur Rahman, who claimed the two were “professional muggers.”
According to him, they were part of a gang, who pose as passengers in vehicles, like auto rickshaws and cars and pick up people only to rob them later. The gang operated between Mohakhali and the Kuril Bishwa Road flyover area and on the road from there which leads to Purbachal, known as the ‘300-feet Road.’
On reports of increasing mugging crimes in the area, the DMP and the Detective Branch deployed surveillance patrols in the area.
“A number of DB teams were deployed at different points in Khilkhet and the 300-feet Road around 11pm on Sunday,” said Deputy Commissioner Rahman.
Around 2.30am, one of the teams spotted a fast moving auto rickshaw heading towards the Khilkhet flyover. The vehicle was signaled to stop but it sped away when the DB patrol team gave chase.
“Soon after, the auto rickshaw stopped, two men came out and opened fire, and the patrol team retaliated,” said the senior DB officer.
The men sustained gunshot injuries in the shootout. They were rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where doctors declared them dead, according to him.
Two other people in the autorickshaw, ‘Shafiqul’ the driver, and one ‘Siddique’, were arrested, said Rahman.
A pistol, two rounds of bullets, sharp weapons, materials to dope victims, and a mobile phone were recovered from the autorickshaw.
During initial quizzing, the men identified the deceased as Nannu and Mosharraf. They also said Nannu, who was a cab driver, was sentenced to seven years in jail for murdering a passenger, said the police.
Mosharraf was also a convict, who was sentenced on several charges, while Shaifq and Siddique have narcotics charges against them, says the Detective Branch.
The four have been using autorickshaws to pick up people as passengers and rob them.
The two suspects confessed to robbing and murdering businessman Harun near the Kurmitola General Hospital. The body was later dumped near the Australian International School on the 300-feet Road, said Deputy Commissioner Rahman.
Rohingyas killed in ‘shootout’ with BGB
In the southeastern district of Cox’s Bazar, two Rohingya refugees were killed early morning on Monday in what the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) said was a gunfight.
The victims have been identified as Mohammad Alam, 26, from Kutupalong camp and Mohammad Yasin, 24, of the Balukhali camp.
The incident took place on the banks of the Naf River at Hnila of Teknaf upazila around 4am, said the local BGB Battalion 2.
As many as 50,000 yaba tablets, a pistol and two rounds of bullets were found at the site of the shooting, according to the border guards.
“Acting on a tipoff about a drug consignment arriving, the BGB conducted a raid in the Nanibari border area near the Naf River. After spotting some people swimming across the river, we told them to surrender. The shootout erupted when the men opened fire,” said Lt Col Mohammad Faisal Hasan Khan, commanding officer of Cox’s Bazar-based BGB Battalion 2.
After the shootout, which lasted for some four or five minutes, two men with gunshot wounds were held from the scene, according to him.
They were rushed to the state-run hospital in Teknaf town, where the doctor’s decided to move them to Cox's Bazar Sadar Hospital, where the two later died, said Khan.
“The BGB brought four injured persons, including two Rohingya men, with gunshot injuries. The Rohingyas were sent to Cox’s Bazar while the BGB members were discharged after treatment,” said Khan Alam, a doctor at the Teknaf hospital’s emergency department.
158 people became victims of extrajudicial killings and custodial deaths in the first six months of 2020, according to data compiled by human rights body Ain o Salish Kendra.
(Arifur Rahman Rabbi from Dhaka and Adbul Aziz from Cox’s Bazar provided inputs for this report)
