Bombs, arms seized in Ctg

Chittagong police busted three "dens of Shibir", the pro-Jamaat students' platform, at a remote hilly area of Nunachhara under Sitakunda upazila in Chittagong early yesterday.

During the six-hour drive, they recovered 70 petrol bombs, 50 crude bombs, four light guns, three rocket flares, 24 cartridges, and 12 locally made weapons, police said.

Shibir has setup makeshift tents in the remote hilly areas, around four-kilometre off Nunachhara bus stand, to impart arms and bomb-making training to its members, police said.

They have been using the places in the deep forest since 2013 to carry out subversive acts on Dhaka-Chittagong highway and in Chittagong city, the law enforcers claimed.

Some of the weapons recovered. Photo: Star

Bottles of cooking oil, bags full of rice, and some utensils were also recovered from the tents during the drive that ended at 6:00am. No one was arrested.

Before conducting the raid, police had detained a BNP leader and two Shibir members in the adjoining areas for their alleged link with subversive acts.

Detainees Fakrul Islam, 50, religious affairs secretary of BNP's Sitakunda unit, and two Shibir members Majharul Islam, 25, and Abdul Aziz, 26, of Nunachhara, divulged information about the three spots.

Several Shibir cadres, who were earlier arrested in different raids in the upazila, also gave information about such hideouts in the hilly areas, said AKM Hafiz Akter, superintendent of police (SP) of Chittagong. 

Over 150 police in four teams from Sitakunda Police Station and the district police headquarters took part in the six-hour drive that started around midnight yesterday.

Additional SP (Headquarters) Md Shohidullah, who jointly conducted the overnight drive, said, "We had to conduct the drive carefully as the area was in dense forest."

Sensing the presence of police, some criminals might have fled to Fatikchaari, he said.

SP Akter alleged that criminals had been using these hideouts, located at the borders of three upazilas, to commit subversive acts in the port city.

They might have been enjoying supports of locals, police said.