Bangladesh ‘militants’ surrender after Facebook plea

Bangladeshi police officials take part in a raid on a militant hideout in Rajshahi in this file photo. (AFP)

DHAKA: Five young Bangladeshis accused of being Daesh militants surrendered to authorities Sunday, an official said, after a lengthy siege that prompted questions about heavy-handed police tactics.
Elite counter-terror troops surrounded a house in the central district of Narsingdi on Saturday afternoon after a tip-off that extremists were holed up there.
The information came from militants arrested in April after a raid on an extremist hideout that left 10 people, including a senior police officer dead, said Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) spokesman Mufti Mahmud Khan.
The five young men in Narsingdi had “surrendered peacefully, which was our main goal,” after a siege that lasted more than 20 hours, he told AFP.
But the incident raised questions about police tactics after one of the five alleged militants took to Facebook to profess his innocence, urging authorities not to storm the building.
“Attention journalists and law enforcers, we are innocent. Please search us if you can find anything. We are locked from outside. Please rescue us,” Abuzafar Mia wrote on the social media website.
Suspected militants in Bangladesh — and sometimes their families — are often killed during police raids on so-called hideouts.
An estimated 70 extremists have been killed by police since July when authorities launched a crackdown in the wake of a cafe attack that left 22 dead.
RAB commander Lt. Col. Kamrul Hasan said the accused would be released from custody if proven innocent.
“We’ve found some jihadi books and leaflets inside the residence. We’ll interrogate them and if they are actually innocent, we’ll definitely release them immediately,” Hasan told AFP.
Bangladesh has been reeling from a spate of attacks in recent years, with scores of foreigners, secular writers, atheist activists and religious minorities killed.
Daesh and Al-Qaeda have claimed responsibility for a number of attacks but Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has denied their involvement, blaming local outfits instead.