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Bangladesh

Schoolboy killed by stray bullet

2011-06-15

[Bangla Daily Star] A schoolboy was killed when a stray bullet from a shootout between Rapid Action Battalion and drug peddlers hit him at Boubazar of Fatullah in Narayanganj last night, police said. Said so casually that it must be on the map, somewhere. If you find it, let us know. His brother Sohag and a friend Badal also suffered bullet injuries. Deceased Shuvo was a class-X student of Pagla High School. Not a madrassah, so his family can afford state school fees, not to mention keeping a son out of the work force through his teen years. Injured 10-year-old Sohag was admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital. May the child heal well and quickly, not ending up in the tender care of Dr. Quincy and his assistant, Jim. Officer-in-Charge Ainul Haq of Fatullah Police Station told The Daily Star that a Rab team raided Boubazar around 9:20pm. This is why crossfires and such are conducted at three in the morning, when all good citizens are snug in their beds, unlikely to be caught by stray bullets in the street. Are the Rab working double shifts again or did they happen across the drug peddlers while picking up chai and spiced nuts for the crew at the station house? The team engaged in a shootout with the drug peddlers. Shuvo was struck down in his prime being hit in the chin and his brother received a bullet in the leg, Ainul Haq said. Their home is close to the spot. Shuvo's body was sent to a Narayanganj hospital. "Paging Dr. Quincy. Dr. Quincy to the white courtesy phone." Meanwhile, ...back at the chili cook-off, Chuck and Manuel's rivalry was entering a new and more dangerous phase... mother of the two Rahima Begum told news agency UNB that Shuvo and Sohag were returning home along with Badal after buying chanachur from a shop. She heard gunfire and rushed out looking for her sons. But to her astonishment she saw her two sons and Badal lying in a poll of blood on the road, the news agency said. Mothers never expect to see that. However, Switzerland makes more than cheese... Captain Nazmul, who led the Rab team, told The Daily Star that they fired a single shot during the drive. A single shot, in a shootout? That seems a bit... frugal. "The drug peddlers assaulted two of our team members, Lance Corporal Jakir and Sergeant Shafiq," he said, adding that the two were sent to a hospital in Dhaka for treatment. It seems the men had stubbed their toes. They'll be fine. But the drug peddlers disappeared from the scene as if they'd never been. So much easier to to when uninjured because the authorities only fired a single shot between them.

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Bangladesh

Huji hideout busted

2011-04-26

[Bangla Daily Star] Rapid Action Battalion yesterday tossed in the calaboose two members of banned Islamist thug outfit Harkatul Jihad al Islami (HuJI), Founded in 1984 by Fazlur Rehman Khalil and Qari Saifullah Aktar. The Bangla branch was established in 1992 with assistance from Osama bin Laden. Recruits come mostly from Deobandi madrassahs. HuJI and Fazlur Rehman Khalil are signators of bin Laden's declaration of war on the west. including its acting chief Abdul Hannan Sabbir, from a hideout at Keraniganj. Keraniganj Upazilla (the things are apparently capitalized when part of a place name, like County Cork) is somewhere in the middle of Dhaka District, which is somewhere in Bangladesh. It can most definitely be found on a map of sufficient detail. It is noted for giving the world Mohammad Rafique, Left Arm Spinner (no doubt something awfully grand) for Bangladesh National Cricket Team. Sabbir, 51, is an accused in sensational cases for carrying out kabooms on an Udichi programme in Jessore and a Pahela Baishakh celebrations event at Ramna Batamul, said Rab officials at a presser at its headquarters in the capital. A miscreant of the first water, that man. The other arrestee Ainul Haq, 28, was coordinating recruitment and secret training of HuJI thugs. Not quite as secret as hoped, poor dear. Sabbir was also sued in a case filed for planting a 76 kilogram bomb at Sheikh Hasina's rally venue at Kotalipara in Gopalganj in 2000. Whoops! According to Rab, the arrestees rented a house near Pachgona Government Primary School in Ati Bazar area a month ago by disguising themselves as garment workers. They dressed in patchwork, which fooled everyone, especially the school kiddies up the street. Three teams of Rab-10, including members of its bomb disposal unit, jointly raided the house around 2:00am yesterday and captured the HuJI men. Mahmoud the Weasel's fourth cousin twice removed on his mother's side was actually the landlord. That and brickyard owner are two of the favored professions of the Weasel clan. The law enforcers also recovered some compact disks (CDs), a bomb-making manual and organisational books of the outfit. And cell phones? HuJI has been trying to reorganise recently, claimed Commander M Sohail, director of Legal and Media Wing of Rab. "HuJI members were visiting different madrasas to recruit members and impart training to them. Analysis of such activities suggests they were planning to carry out subversive activities," he told The Daily Star. Of course. That's why zakat money supports such institutions. It is better give of your substance to support a jihadi than to go on jihad yourself, after all. An Afghan war veteran Sabbir was the founding organising secretary of HuJI and later acted as commander of its northern unit. Hailing from Bogra, he used to reside in Rajshahi and run a women's madrasa there. He absconded from Rajshahi after the present government took over and launched a combing operation against thugs, mentioned the Rab official. The thug took training on arms and explosives at camps in Ukhia under Cox's Bazar to join Iraq war in 1988, but Indian police tossed in the calaboose him for trespassing. Trespassing? That seems a bit mild, given what he was doing while spending time uninvited on someone else's property... Later in 1993, he returned home and started training the new recruits of HuJI. "All right, lads -- attach the red wire to the black wire, twist together and get the wire nu-- NO, Belalullah, NOT the green wi--" BOOM!! "Dammit, we lose more trainees that way. Who knew inbreeding led to so much colourblindness!" On December 14 last year Rab busted a HuJI den at Raujan of Chittagong and tossed in the calaboose four military trainers. Sabbir was present there and managed to escape arrest. The mills of the Rab grind slowly, but...(you know the rest, of course.) According to confessions made by already tossed in the calaboose HuJI leaders, the beturbanned goons are responsible for more than 20 deadly bomb and grenade attacks since 1999 that killed over 100 people. Hang 'em high. After a fair trial, of course.

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Bangladesh

Mutineers started to flee after 1pm Thursday

2009-02-28

Several thousand BDR personnel who were in their headquarters at Pilkhana started to flee at around 1:00 pm on Thursday, sensing trouble. In a frantic bid to escape, they scaled the boundary wall at more than 15 points between BDR Gate-1 and Gate-5, near Gate-2, said local people. Around 25 BDR members left their arms outside the boundary wall. Many others who escaped later however threw those back inside the wall. And about 60 border guards re-entered the BDR headquarters crossing the boundary wall after 8:00 am yesterday, locals said. Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) detained 193 fleeing BDR men at different points in and around the capital, and seized 25 tolas of gold from their possession, said Commander SMAK Azad, director of legal and media wing of Rab. A law enforcement agency official said they found around 300 BDR personnel in the headquarters yesterday while their number was about 100 on Friday. Monir Hossain, a resident of nearby Ganaktuli Lane, told these correspondents that escape of BDR men started at about 1:00 pm on Thursday and continued till 8:00 pm. They chose their escape points as a long stretch of the boundary wall from Azimpur to Hazaribagh, and Hazaribagh to Jigatala was out of army watch at the time, he said. Another resident of the area -Ainul Haque- said two BDR members were wounded while jumping from the wall. Other escapees took them along. Most of the escapees put off their uniforms inside the boundary wall and the others outside it, said Jahangir, another local. Some people of the area later threw inside the wall the uniforms found outside it to avert possible trouble. "About 1,000 people crossed the boundary wall at five points near BDR Gate-2 at Azimpur," said a local resident seeking not to be named. Two rifles were found in a drain just inside the wall near Gate-2 at 3:00 pm yesterday, one source said.

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