A woman and a man suspected of being militants blew themselves up on Saturday 24/12 on the outskirts of this city, the capital, during a police raid on an apartment believed to be a den for a militant group, the police said. “This is the first incident in the country where a female militant committed suicide bombing” by detonating explosives on her body, said Masudur Rahman, deputy commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police.
The police cordoned off the apartment building at 2 a.m. on Saturday, and two women with two children surrendered, said Yousuf Ali, another police official. The women, the police said, were married to members of the militant group, Jamaat-ul-Mujahedeen Bangladesh, who are suspects in a series of attacks against civilians in recent years.
Hours later, another woman left the building with a 4-year-old girl and set off two grenades. The woman was killed, and the child was wounded by shrapnel from the explosives. She was being treated at Dhaka Medical College and Hospital and seemed likely to survive, said Jasmin Nahar, a surgeon at the hospital.
A man suspected of being a militant also set off grenades inside the apartment, killing himself.
Bangladesh is still reeling from attacks by militants against secular writers, bloggers, religious minorities and foreigners that began in 2013. In July, militants attacked a bakery in Dhaka and 22 people were killed. Since then, the police have carried out raids and made thousands of arrests. The government has said that Jamaat-ul-Mujahedeen Bangladesh is responsible for much of the violence, while the Islamic State and a local faction of Al Qaeda have posted claims of responsibility on social media sites.
Mr. Ali said one of the women who surrendered on Saturday was the wife of a former army major who turned extremist and was killed by the police in September.
Source: New York Times