Unidentified robbers snatched a submachine gun and 30 rounds of ammunition from a policeman, after severely injuring him in the head with a sharp weapon, at Baniakhali Bazaar under Dumuria upazila in Khulna district in the early hours of Thursday.
Naik Abul Bashar, 45, of the Sharafpur Armed Police Battalion camp, was admitted to the Khulna Medical College Hospital, said sources.
According to eye-witnesses, a number of armed robbers, after overpowering and confining the night guards, broke the locks of Muslim Jewellers at Baniakhali Bazaar and looted gold and silver ornaments on Thursday at around 1:30am.
When the robbers were beating up a night guard near Sharafpur’s Union Parishad Bhaban in the bazaar, a number of people including the local UP chairman Nuruddin Al Masud tried to stop them but the robbers, armed with lethal weapons, chased them away, they said.
They said that Masud immediately went to the nearby Sharafpur thana from where a police team and locals went to the bazaar and chased the robbers who opened fire and hurled bombs at the crowd, they said.
At one stage, the robbers hit Bashar with a sharp weapon and snatched a Chinese SMG loaded with 30 rounds of bullets, said eyewitnesses and police, adding that Bashar was immediately rushed to the KMCH for treatment.
Dumuria thana’s officer-in-charge, Abdul Jalil, told New Age that on Thursday evening top officials of the police and Rapid Action Battalion visited the spot. A case was lodged with the thana in this connection, he said.
He told New Age that they had picked up 10 persons from various places for questioning and had been launching drives to apprehend the miscreants and recover the looted firearm and ammunition and the stolen ornaments.
