Dhaka, Bangladesh (BB)- At least 13 suspected robbers were killed in alleged gunfights with police at Paikgachha and Dakop upazilas in the country’s southwestern Khulna district on Sunday, police said.
All the deceased were members of a robbery gang, locally known as Kashem Bahini, a local police officer said. “Locals caught two ‘robbers’ -- Karim and Avi -- when they were trying to abduct a college teacher at Jirbunia in the upazila town around 4:30am on Saturday.”
As the police were escorting the robbers to the local police station through the bank of the Kapodak River, the abductors fired shots on the law enforcers, triggering a gunfight that left two of the robbers dead on the spot.
Acting on their confessional statements that the robbers have more firearms in the mangrove forest, police were taking the arrested 11 robbers for the recovery of the firearms, the police officer added.
As the police, he said, arrived at Hardakaliboghi in between Paikgachha and Koira upazilas at about 1:00 pm on Sunday, the robbers tried to escape firing shots at the cops, triggering another gunfight that left all the 11 robbers dead on the spot.
The deceased could not yet be identified as the police were on their way to Khulna Medical College Hospital along with the dead bodies for their postmortems, according to reports.
BBN/SSR/AD-05Oct14-4:50 pm (BST)