CHITTAGONG:
Bangladesh commandos stormed a passenger jet in the country's southeast
yesterday 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 rushed the
Boeing 737-800 plane after it landed safely in Chittagong. The 134 passengers
and 14 crew aboard the Bangladesh Biman flight BG147 were all rescued unharmed,
officials said.

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. "Our commando team asked the hijacker
to surrender, but he rejected it by being aggressive, and was shot,"
Rahman told reporters. "Later on we learnt he had died... We found a
pistol from him and nothing else."

The airport was
sealed off by army, navy and elite police after landing to collect more
passengers from Dhaka on its journey to Dubai. "Just ten minutes after the
plane took off (from Dhaka) he fired twice," one passenger told reporters
in Chittagong. Air Vice Marshall Mofid, who goes by one name, said he kept the
accused man busy talking on the phone while special forces units prepared for
the dramatic raid. "He demanded to speak to our Prime Minister (Sheikh
Hasina)," Mofid said. "He claimed he had a pistol, but we are not
sure yet whether it is an actual gun or a fake."

An unnamed member
of the crew said the man was carrying a bomb-like object. "(He) said,
'I'll hijack this plane... If you don't open the cockpit, I will blow up the
plane,'" the crew member told Bangladeshi newspaper Prothom Alo. Other
crew members said passengers were evacuated through four emergency gates of the
plane. The hijacker also held a flight steward hostage.  

The operation
took less than 10 minutes and the plane has been searched and declared worthy
to fly again, Rahman said. The country's civil aviation chief, Nayeem Hasan,
earlier said the suspect had claimed to have a bomb aboard the flight.
"From the talks and dialogue we have with him, it seems he is
psychologically deranged," Hasan said after the man was arrested.

Another army
spokesman, Abdullah Ibne Zaid, said Chittagong's Shah Amanat International
Airport was "very much under control of the Bangladesh Army".
"The army's special forces conducted the operation and the armed man has
been neutralized," he said. Rahman said an investigation would be
conducted into how the man "passed airport security details with a
gun". "It will take some time," he said.

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. 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. That attack prompted a
swift crackdown by Prime Minister Hasina, with hundreds of suspected militants
and their sympathizers arrested or killed in raids across the country. -
AFP