Police again came under attack by suspected militants during a routine check of a bus on Dhaka-Chittagong highway in Comilla's Chandina yesterday. Two attackers were detained.
Around 11:30am, police stopped a bus at Kutumbopur checkpoint when two "militants" hurled crude bombs at police. Law enforcers then opened fire. One of the "militants" was hit, said Nasir Uddin Mridha, officer-in-charge of Chandina Police Station, reports our Comilla correspondent.
The bombs did not explode and no policemen were hurt, he said.
Locals caught Hasan and beat him up when he was trying to flee.
The other detainee is bullet-hit Jasim, 20, the police official said, adding that a backpack, containing several handmade bombs, was seized from Hasan's possession.
Jasim and Hasan, 20, were admitted to Comilla Medical College Hospital.
Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, Shah Abid Hossain, superintendent of Comilla police, said, "During primary interrogation, they [Jasim and Hasan] admitted their involvement in militancy."
Asked which group they belong to, he said they were investigating. "When they were hurling bombs at police, they chanted Allah hu Akbar," the police official said.
Atiqul Islam, deputy inspector general (highway police), and Comilla SP visited the spot and a team of bomb disposal unit from Dhaka defused the bombs.
Yesterday's incident happened a day after an attempted bomb attack on a convoy of prison vans to "snatch away" condemned Harkatul Jihad al Islami (Huji) chief Mufti Abdul Hannan in Gazipur. On February 28, some suspected militants stabbed two policemen in Rajshahi.
In another development, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan termed the attacks on police in Gazipur and Comilla "isolated incidents" and said that militancy was not fully eradicated from the country, but it was under control, reports our Rajshahi correspondent.
Yesterday, he was addressing the inaugural function of newly constructed building of Poba Police Station.
Militants were carrying out their activities in the country as part of local and foreign conspiracy against the government. They were hatching a conspiracy against the country and Islam, he claimed.