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Habiganj hostages freed in cop action

Militant suspect held after 3 1/2 hrs siege of BTCL office

Shariful Islam
A suspected militant yesterday laid siege to the BTCL Habiganj office for three and a half hours and threatened to blow it up holding two people, including a child, hostage.
The nerve-racking standoff came to an end when police got the hostages free and captured Shaheen, 35, during his bid to Dee by exploding bombs. Law enforcers had to shoot him in the leg to make the arrest.
The militant suspect Shaheen around 4:00pm stormed the building at Shayastanagar with six bomb-like devices wrapped around his body and Akash, a young boy, in his lap. He went to the switch room on the first floor where he held the boy and SubAssistant Engineer Arab Ali hostage, police said.
Shaheen asked all other staffers to vacate the building threatening to blowit up. He also held aknife on Akash's throat.
He demanded to speak with the deputy commissioner (DC) and superintendent of police (SP) of Habiganj. The DC and the SP rushed to the spot hearing the news of the standoff.
As Shaheen insisted on talking to the SP, a policeman posing as a journalist asked him to take a cellphone and talk to the SP. When Shaheen tried to get the phone through the switch-room door using Akash, the policeman pulled the child away to safety around 5:00pm.
Akash told police that the man brandishing a knife took him hostage at a nearby playground on the Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd (BTCL) Habiganj office premises and brought him to the building.
Meanwhile, loosing Akash. Shaheen held the knife on Arab Ali's throat and told him to turn all the equipment in the room off. As .Arab Ali made a bit of delay in complying, Shaheen in anger destroyed a computer in the room, police said.
Arab Ali managed to escape ^captivity giving Shaheen the excuse of offering Asr prayers around 6:30pm.
When law enforcers asked Shaheen to surrender, since he had no hostages, Shaheen requested 30 minutes time.
Habiganj SP Akkas Uddin Bhuiyan told The Daily Star over cellphone that after the time had expired Shaheen set off bombs and made a run for it In the balcony, law enforcers shot him several times with shotguns and he was injured in the leg. He also sustained bum injuries from the explosion, the SP added.
The whole thing ended around 7:30pm.
Shaheen who hails from Bahula in Habiganj Sadar was undergoing treatment at a
hospital in the district, sources said.
The SP said during initial interrogation the captured man claimed that he is not involved in any militant organisation. He also claimed that he only tried to create panic.
"After investigation we will know whether he is a militant and what his intentions were, " Akkas Uddin said.
Rab, police, and intelligence personnel were present during the standoff. Rab's bomb squad was called into action to deactivate two devices that Shaheen failed to setoff.
The incumbent chief of banned Islamist organisation Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) Maulana Saidur Rahman also hails from Habiganj. Before joining JMB, Saidur was the Habiganj district Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami.