COMILLA, Bangladesh, 14 March 2006 — Four people including two children were killed yesterday as blasts ripped through a house surrounded by security forces hunting militants linked to a wave of bombings, officials said.
Members of the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) fired into the house in the eastern town of Comilla after the explosions and they later reported seeing four dead bodies lying inside, said Mahbub Alam Molla, director general of the force. “They are a JMB (Jamatul Mujahedeen) man, his wife and their two young sons,” he said.
The siege at the house in the eastern town of Comilla began earlier yesterday after a string of arrests by officers hunting the leaders of an outlawed group that has been waging a bloody campaign to have strict Shariah laws imposed in the country.
Police said they have not yet searched the building for fear of further explosions. After the leader of the banned Jamatul Mujahedeen, Shaikh Abdur Rahman, and its second-in-command, Siddiqul Islam, were arrested earlier this month officials said they were still searching for the last two members of the group’s seven-member decision-making body.
“We arrested nine people in different places including the JMB Comilla district commander and two other members and based on their information we surrounded the house,” said Molla. “At noon they hurled a bomb at our officers injuring two and forcing us to shoot back. They hurled more bombs and shouted that they would kill themselves rather than give up,” he added. The condition of the wounded officers was not yet known.
Meanwhile, police used tear gas in the capital Dhaka yesterday to disperse opposition activists who called a national strike over the killing of a local party chief by an elite security force.
“Opposition activists became unruly and started throwing bricks and stones at our officers so we used tear gas shells to disperse them,” said deputy commissioner of Dhaka police Mahbub Alam.
The capital and other main cities came to a near-standstill as a result of the half-day strike called yesterday by the youth wing of the main opposition Awami League party.
