Military commandoes are ready to join the operation to free the hostages at the Gulshan restaurant.
Forces were preparing to launch an operation ‘shortly’ to end the Gulshan restaurant hostage situation in which at least two senior police officials were killed so far and scores injured.
It is believed that about 50 people including at least 20 foreign nationals have remained trapped in the restaurant in Bangladesh capital Dhaka.
Reuters reported from New Delhi that police were preparing to launch an operation to free some of the hostages, including several foreigners, from the restaurant named Holey Artisan Bakery.
Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) added that police had not been able to communicate with the gunmen yet. Two Bangladeshis were able to escape from the restaurant with bullet injuries, he said.
Newsmen covering incidents said the law enforcers were making preparations to launch an operation at dawn to end the crisis. They said they have heard sounds of few explosions and gunshots.
Along with elite RAB force, paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh, police, navy commandos and special force SWAT were deployed around the scene.
Law enforcers said they have cordoned off a four-kilometer radius area of the restaurant.
Police arrested a young man who was reportedly roaming suspiciously on a road close to Holey Artisan Bakery restaurants in the early hours of Saturday.
Police claimed that they chased the man, aged 17-18, when he seemed suspicious, and at one stage shot him in the leg around 4:00am Saturday morning .
When Prothom Alo correspondent asked the youth his name, he answered - 'Shaon'.
The two senior police officials- police's Detective Branch assistant commissioner Rabiul Islam and Banani police station officer-in-charge Salahuddin- were killed in the shooting by the gun-wielding hostage-takers and about 50 others injured in the exchange of gunshots between the law enforcers and the gunmen.
UNB reported that at least 50 of the injured, including additional deputy commissioners of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Sheikh M Maruf Hasan and Ahad, were rushed to the United Hospital.
Three other injured -- constables Alamgir, 26, and Pradip, 28, and Abdur Razzak, a microbus driver -- were taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
A group of gun wielding youths numbering eight to nine and aged between 20 and 28 stormed the restaurant in the diplomatic zone of Dhaka around 8:30pm in the evening, firing gunshots and charging bombs.
Witnesses said the gunmen were carrying swords and chanting ‘Allahu-Akbar’ while storming the restaurant.
It is believed that over 50 customers, including at least 20 foreigners were inside the Holey Artisan Bakery on Road 79, which is popular with foreigners.
According to different news agencies, the hostages include nationals of Italy, India and Argentina.
The SITE Intelligence Group has tweeted that the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIS) claimed the responsibility for the Dhaka restaurant hostage in which at least two police officers were killed and scores injured.
As several members of law enforcers sustained bullet wounds during the first attempt to free the hostages, RAB’s director general Benazir Ahmed said the authorities would be trying to end the Gulshan restaurant hostage crisis “peacefully”, by holding talks with the gunmen.
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