By Sumi Khan

Dhaka, Nov 15 (IANS): An Bangladesh Air Force officer, working at the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), was killed in a gunfight with drug traffickers along the Myanmar border in Bandarban's Naikkhyangchhari, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said on Tuesday.

RAB constable Sohail Barua, who was injured in the firing, has been admitted to the Neurosurgery Department of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital DMCH and has already undergone head surgery, he added.

According to the minister, there was exchange of fire between law enforcement forces and Rohingya drug dealers at the zero line of the Tumbru border in Bandarban on Monday evening.

In response to the questions of journalists here, Kamal said: "The anti-narcotics operation was being conducted based on the information of the intelligence agencies. An officer was accidentally shot dead there. We are working on how he was shot and which drug dealers shot him. We will reveal the truth of this incident later."

The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) reported that an armed forces officer was killed and a RAB member was injured in a clash with "smugglers" at the Konarpara Line of Control on the Tumbru border in Naikhangchari hill area on Monday evening.

The incident occurred around 6.30 p.m., said Dil Mohammad Bhutto, a leader (Majhi) of the camp of the local Ghumdhum union council, and Ariful Islam, a community leader of the Rohingya camp set up on land between the borders of the two countries. Dil Mohammad said he heard several people were injured in the shootout.

Mohammad Ashikur Rahman, te resident medical officer of Cox's Bazar General Hospital, said Barua, 30, of RAB-15 in the district was brought to the hospital around 9.45 p.m. with critical injuries, including head injuries, and was to be transferred to Chattogram Medical College Hospital (CMCH) or the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Dhaka for advanced treatment if his bleeding did not stop.

Police and RAB officials at the hospital declined to comment.