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The hijacked Dubai-bound Bangladesh Biman plane is seen at the tarmac after an emergency landing at the Shah Amanat International Airport in Chittagong on February 24, 2019. Photo courtesy bssnews.net <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
The suspect, described by officials as a Bangladeshi man in his mid 20s, was shot as special forces rushed the Boeing 737-800 plane after it landed safely in Chittagong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 134 passengers and 14 crew aboard the Bangladesh Biman flight BG147 were all rescued unharmed, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the suspected hijacker – identified by the name “Mahadi” and described as being 25 or 26 years old – was injured and died shortly after being arrested, said army spokesman Major General Motiur Rahman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Our commando team asked the hijacker to surrender, but he rejected it by being aggressive, and was shot,” Rahman told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Later on we learnt he had died \u2026 We found a pistol from him and nothing else.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The airport was sealed off by Army, Navy and elite police after landing to collect more passengers from Dhaka on its journey to Dubai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Just ten minutes after the plane took off (from Dhaka) he fired twice,” one passenger told reporters in Chittagong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Air Vice Marshall Mofid, who goes by one name, said he then kept the accused man busy talking on the phone while special forces units prepared for the dramatic raid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“He demanded to speak to our Prime Minister (Sheikh Hasina),” Mofid said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“He claimed he had a pistol, but we are not sure yet whether it is an actual gun or a fake.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An unnamed member of the crew said the man was carrying a bomb-like object.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“(He) said, ‘I’ll hijack this plane \u2026 If you don’t open the cockpit, I will blow up the plane,'” the crew member told Bangladeshi newspaper Prothom Alo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other crew members said passengers were evacuated through four emergency gates of the plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The hijacker also held a flight steward hostage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘PSYCHOLOGICALLY DERANGED’<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The operation took less than 10 minutes and the plane has been searched and declared worthy to fly again, Rahman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The country’s civil aviation chief, Nayeem Hasan, earlier said the suspect had claimed to have a bomb aboard the flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“From the talks and dialogue we have with him, it seems he is psychologically deranged,” Hasan said after the man was arrested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another army spokesman, Abdullah Ibne Zaid, said Chittagong’s Shah Amanat International Airport was “very much under control of the Bangladesh Army”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The army’s special forces conducted the operation and the armed man has been neutralised,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rahman said an investigation would be conducted into how the man “passed airport security details with a gun”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It will take some time,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation of 165 million, has struggled to grapple with homegrown extremism in recent years, including the murder of atheist bloggers and progressive activists by Islamist outfits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a deadly attack claimed by the Islamic State group in 2016, militants killed 22 people including 18 foreigners at an upmarket cafe in Dhaka popular with Westerners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That attack prompted a swift crackdown by Prime Minister Hasina, with hundreds of suspected militants and their sympathisers arrested or killed in raids across the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CHITTAGONG, Feb 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Bangladesh commandos stormed a passenger jet in the country’s southeast on Sunday (Feb 24) and shot dead an armed man who allegedly tried to hijack the Dubai-bound flight, an army official said. The suspect, described by officials as a Bangladeshi man in his mid 20s, was shot as special forces […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":10456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[215,291],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10443"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}