At least four pirates were killed in ‘crossfire’ with personnel of the Coast Guard (CG) and the Rapid Action Battalion-8 (RAB-8) at Kachikhali area in the Sundarbans yesterday morning. The RAB and CG recovered a huge cache of arms from their possession. The slain pirates were identified as the chief of the Munir Bahini, Md. Munir Hosen, and his three associates, including Md Enam of Barguna, Md. Gias Uddin, and Md Hasan of Chittagong. RAB-8 sources said, acting on a tip, four teams of RAB-8 and a CG team took up positions at Kachikhali village in the Sundarbans early in the morning. Around 6:15am, when the joint teams were crossing the area, the pirates attacked both the teams. The pirates kept on firing till 6:45am. The RAB and the CG teams both retaliated later. The RAB launched search operations later inside the jungle and found the bodies of these four pirates. All of them had been killed in the shootout, sources said.
The RAB and CG teams, during their search, recovered two foreign-made guns, four single-barrel cut guns, four single-barrel foreign guns, two air rifles, four light guns, two single-shutter guns, 41 live cartridges, 135 rounds of bullets of .22 bore rifles and sharp weapons. The RAB handed over the bodies to the local police stations and filed a case in this connection. RAB sources disclosed that the Munir Bahini had been responsible for 10 dacoities in the Sundarbans area in the past three months. It had also abducted over 100 fishermen and released them after taking huge amounts as ransom.