A family of five and a fire officer died and two young children were rescued when police raided a suspected Islamist hideout in Bangladesh early Thursday, a senior officer said.
Sumit Chowdhury told AFP police shot dead all five family members after they emerged from the suspected hideout in southwest Bangladesh.
One of the five stabbed the fire officer, who later died of his injuries, while two others hurled grenades at police.
‘We were surprised by the attack. Two of them threw grenades and another attacked a fire service officer with a sharp rod. He later died in hospital,’ said Chowdhury.
‘Five extremists were killed in our shooting. They including a father, his wife and their two sons and a daughter.’
Chowdhury said police raided the house in Habashpur village in Rajshahi district after receiving a tip-off that members of the outlawed Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) Islamist group were holed up there.
Police have rescued a baby of two months and a seven-year-old boy, and believe one woman may still be inside the house.
It was not clear whether the sons and daughter were adults, but police said one of the younger men, named as Al Amin, alias Hamza, was the prime suspect.
Bangladesh authorities have blamed the JMB for a wave of deadly attacks against religious minorities and foreigners in the Muslim-majority country.
These include a major attack on a Dhaka cafe last July in which 22 people were killed, most of them foreigners.
Police have arrested scores of suspected extremists and killed more than 70 people since the cafe attack including at least 11 in the past two weeks.
Analysts say Islamist militants pose a growing danger in conservative Bangladesh, where a long-running political crisis has radicalised opponents of the government.
On Tuesday three men stormed a mosque in Bangladesh and attacked a cleric from the Ahmadi minority Muslim community with cleavers, leaving him critically injured.
