Drug trader killed in police firing while snatching accused

BRAHMANBARIA, July 20 (UNB): A drug trader was killed in police firing when his relatives were snatching his son from , also an accused in a narcotics case, from the custody of the law enforcers at Adampur village in Bijoynagar upazila of Brahmanbaria in the early hours of Thursday.
The dead, Ayub Noor (50), was a drug dealer and an accused in five narcotics cases, said police.
Thirteen people, including 10 policemen, were injured in the incident.
Raju Ahmed, officer-in-charge of Bijoynagar thana, said almost all the family members of Ayub Noor of Adampur village in the upazila are drug dealers.
There are five cases against Ayub Noor, five cases against his son Arif Noor and 10 cases against another son Tofazzal.
There was a court arrest warrant against Arif Noor, said the OC.
A team of police from Bijoynagar thana raided the house in the early hours of Thursday and arrested Arif from his house.
When he was being brought to the thana after his arrest, his family members started shouting and surrounded the police from all sides, said the police official.
At that time, they attacked the police with locally-made weapons and snatched Arif in handcuffs.
Ayub Noor, Salma Begum and Amon were injured when police fired eight rounds of rubber bullets in self-defence, added the OC.
The injured were first taken to the Sadar hospital and from they were referred to Dhaka. Ayub died at a hospital in Dhaka, he said.
A search operation is underway to find accused Arif who was snatched, added OC Raju.
However, relatives of the deceased claimed that some people came to pick up Arif at the house at around 3:30 am on Thursday. They didn't know whether they were police and came forward on suspicion of those people being robbers, they said.