Tamim Chy among 3 killed in N`ganj militant hideout operation

Three militants, including Gulshan café attack mastermind Tamim Chowdhury, were killed during a special police operation, ‘Hit Strom’, in a den of ‘New JMB’ in a building of Narayanganj sadar upazila on Saturday morning. Tipped off, DMP’s Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit unearthed the New 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, said Additional deputy commissioner of the Bomb Disposal Unit of CTTC Sanwar. Police cordoned off the area and evacuated the occupants of the building. Sanwar said 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. — Dhaka, Aug 27 (UNB)