Panic still prevails in Kalyanpur

Mohammad Zahir in his middle age was seen off-balance in the scorching heat yesterday in front of Taj Manzil where nine suspected militants were killed in a police encounter the day before.

The 50-year-old tea vendor and his family came out of the building at the early hours of Tuesday ahead of the operation “Storm-26”. They were not allowed to get in until around 3:00pm yesterday.

“I suffered brain haemorrhage a few months back. It is tiring for me to stay out and talk for long,” he said in a faint voice.

Zahir's family has been living at a flat on the second-floor for more than a year.

His son Shahinur said they had been living in Kalyanpur for several years and that people in the neighbourhood knew them well.

Another family, however, had been confined to its rented flat on the second floor for more than 16 hours. They could come out around 4:45pm on Tuesday.

Local people said some residents of the building had been evacuated before the operation and some after the operation.

The six-storey building has four units on each floor.

One of the policemen deployed around the building yesterday said they were asked not to allow anyone to enter the building until further instruction.

Contacted, Deputy Commissioner Masud Ahmed of Dhaka Metropolitan Police said police were not preventing tenants from getting in.

Only the flat on the fourth floor where the militants were living was sealed off. 

“We have deployed two platoons of police in front of Taj Manzil to dispel fear among people in the area,” he told The Daily Star by phone last night.

Some 30 policemen were seen in front of the house yesterday afternoon.

Meanwhile, the neighbourhoods in the capital's Kalyanpur were still reeling from the sensational police encounter.

The operation “Storm 26” left house owners and tenants worrying about what is awaiting them in the days to come. 

A number of inhabitants on Road-5 said they could not come out during the night-long standoff.

Shops remained closed for the whole day on Tuesday, locals said.

There are about 1,200 houses in the area. Twenty percent of them have been rented by university and college students and small scale traders, said Mahbubur Rahman Ratan, president of the Kalyanpur Kendria Samaj Kalyan Parishad.

Many houses in the area are not preferred by families due to unplanned construction, he said, adding that Kalyan Parishad, which has a number of house owners as member, would take steps to collect information about tenants from now on.

Local people said low-income group prefers the area to neighbouring Mohammadpur area as house rent here is low.

“House owners will now think twice before renting out their flats,” said Mohammad Shahin, a house-owner on Road-8 in the area.

Liton Shikder, a photo studio owner, said it was hard to believe that a group of militants had stayed in the area and used a flat as hideout.

Locals also said the militants who rented the flat last month were unknown to them.

“I cannot remember seeing any of them in the area,” said a security guard of an adjacent building.

Zahir's son Shahinur, however, said he had heard sounds of hammering nails on the wall upstairs often at night.