Bangladesh Coast Guard in Boat-to-Boat Gunfight, Two Pirates Killed

A half hour of boat-to-boat shooting. That’s a long gunfight. Not sure how all of the pirates were armed, but from the photo above you can see the Bangladesh Coast Guard carries AK-47 style assault rifles as their personal weapon. If the pirates were firing improvised pipe guns like those seized after the fight I doubt it was much of a fight, but considering the thirty minute time lapse I would suspect they had some additional firepower. Either way the Bangladesh Coast Guard got themselves into, and out of, a night time on the water gunfight and prevailed. BZ.

On a side note, notice the helmet color in the photo. Boat crews, you are not alone in the world with your shiny blue helmets. Maybe one day everyone wear black so boaters stop mistaking crews for UN peace keepers and snickering at the always outrageous USCG color schemes. Orange and black survival wear, dark blue uniform, and glitter blue helmet. It’s unique, I’ll give it that.

Two pirates were killed in a shootout with a joint team of Coast Guard, Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and police on Thursday at Pathorghata upazila in Barguna, Bangladesh. The deceased were identified as Faruq, 28, Afjal Hossain, 35 of Tengra village of the upazila. Both were the members of Julfiqar Bahini, a gang of pirates in the Sundarbans area, said Rab.

The joint team recovered 3 pipe guns, 10 rounds of bullets and 2 machetes from the spot. The bodies were handed over to Pathorghata police.

Maj Kazi Shamsher Uddin, deputy director of Rab-8, said a joint team of Coast Guard, Rab and police was patrolling the Boleshwar River and its adjacent areas. Around 3:00am the team challenged a gang of pirates who were on a speedy trawler, but the gang started firing at the law enforcers, after a gunfight of half an hour the gang fled, but the law forces recovered the two bodies and the arms, Maj Shamsher said. Coast Guard and Rab started patrolling the area as pirate gangs increased their activities there during the current Hilsa catching season.

Daily Star