The physicians at the Bamroongrad Hospital in Bangkok, where he was undergoing treatment since Wednesday, declared Commodore Rabbani 'clinically dead' on Friday, dashing all hopes to bring him back to life, sources said.

He was likely to be declared dead following the withdrawal of life-supporting ventilator sometime yesterday.

Rabbani, also the former Chittagong Port Authority chairman, came under attack on April 11 at the city's busy Muradpur Road when some six to seven unidentified assailants waylaid him on his way to KEPZ site. They snatched the belongings of him and five other colleagues who were also on the microbus bound for KEPZ and shot once only at Rabbani in the throat.

Rabbani was immediately rushed to the Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH) and later shifted to Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Dhaka the same afternoon following deterioration of his condition.

He was flown to Bangkok by a special air ambulance on Wednesday.

Sources said commodore Rabbani went into coma on last Tuesday at CMH and was then flown to Bangkok.

Meanwhile, Chittagong police are yet to make any headway into the case seven days since the attack.

The two main FIR-named accused, former general manager Abu Naser Chowdhury and former security officer Humayun Kabir of KEPZ are still at large.

Police so far arrested 10 people on suspicion.

Sources in police think that an internal feud within the KEPZ involving some of its officials axed recently by the authorities might be the reason for the murder of commodore Rabbani.

An official of Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) said the way the attack was carried out shows surely it was no act of amateurs and it was not simply a case of mugging, rather it was planned much earlier. "The matter of mugging attempt came to light only to camouflage the real intention of the attack."