DHAKA: Three alleged Islamist extremists were killed yesterday in a raid by Bangladesh police as security was stepped up before Pope Francis’s landmark visit to the Muslim-majority nation, officials said. Police said the trio died in suspected suicide blasts after they opened fire and threw bombs at anti-terror officers who cordoned off a house where they were hiding near the Indian border.

Rapid Action Battalion police surrounded the home following a tip-off and urged those holed up inside to surrender but they opened fire instead, the force’s local commander Mahbubul Alam said. “Moments later there were several loud explosions and the house caught on fire.

Later we found three mangled bodies, one of them with a severed head,” he said. He said the three were active members of Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) - a homegrown militant group blamed for a string of deadly attacks on foreigners, atheist bloggers, rights activists and religious minorities in recent years.