Five tribesmen, suspected to be activists of a regional insurgent group, were killed in a pre-dawn encounter with army troops in hilly southeastern Bangladesh, officials said today.
Police said the five armed Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity (PCJSS) activists were killed as the army raided the rugged Barhadam area of Rangamati hill district in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, early this morning to track down a "terrorist den" on a tip off.
"The armed men are believed to be PCJSS activists who used their guns as the army raided their hideout while the troops retaliated," officer in charge of nearby police station Zakir Hossain told PTI as he was reached here by phone.
He added that one army soldier was also wounded during the gunfight at the end of which the security forces seized several military weapons like sub-machine guns, self loaded rifles and Chinese rifles from the scene along with ammunition and army uniforms.
But an online version of mass circulation Prothom Alo newspaper quoting army commander of the area Lieutenant Colonel Ali Haidar said the dead belonged to PCJSS and its rival United Peoples Democratic Front (UPDF).
"We raided the village on the basis of a tip off that 20 armed terrorists are hiding there. They tried to flee the scene using gunshots to be retaliated and the gunfight continued for nearly an hour," Haidar said.
He said the dead were wearing military uniforms. But both the PCJSS and UPDF denied the dead were their men.
PCJSS under Larma carried out two-decade long insurgency demanding autonomy for the hill people forming the now defunct Shanti Bahini armed wing.
They fought the bush war until 1997, when the government during previous 1996-2001 tenure of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling Awami League reached a peace deal with PCJSS drawing an end to the protracted insurgency.
But the deal saw the emergence of the UPDF initially an anti-peace accord tribal group though later it softened its stance against the agreement but remained as a bitter rival of PCJSS.
But today's encounter between the army and the alleged PCJSS men was the first since the 1997 accord which installed Larma as the chief of Chittagong Hill Tracts Regional Council with the status of a state minister.
