Rab sources said Mizan alias Tokai Mizan, arrested in Arambagh at 4:30pm Wednesday, died in the 'crossfire' between Rab members and a band of his accomplices on the Dhaka City Flood Protection Embankment at Kamrangir Char at 3:30am yesterday.

With the death of Mizan, one of the prime accused of the killing of Buet (Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology) student Sabiqunnahar Soni in 2002, the death count in Rab operations since June 21 last has risen to 42.

A team of Rab-2 nabbed Mizan raiding Kazi Office Lane in Ramna Wednesday afternoon and then interrogated him in their custody to extract information about his accomplices and the firearms of himself and his gang, said the Rab headquarters in a press release.

Acting on his confession, the Rab-2 team launched a hunt at different points in the capital for his operatives and arms at 8:00pm Wednesday, the release went on.

According to it, during the search, Mizan's gang members attacked the Rab vehicle when the Rab team went to Kamrangir Char at around 2:00am yesterday to raid the house of Anwar, one of his accomplices.

Getting off the vehicle the Rab members countered the assault, resulting in a 20-minute skirmish, the release claimed, adding Mizan was hit by bullets of his own partners in crime as he tried to escape from the vehicle amid the shootout and died on the spot.

After the gangsters fled the scene, the Rab reported to have recovered a US-made .32 revolver, a UK-made .22 pistol, a .22 foreign revolver and seven bullets from the spot.

But, during a visit to the place yesterday morning, locals told The Daily Star they had heard a couple of gunshots in the early hours but did not see any one apart from the Rab members.

Mizan's body has been sent to Midford hospital for autopsy.

A URCHIN TURNED KINGPIN
Mizan was accused in around two dozen criminal cases including eight for murders filed with the city's Ramna, Lalbagh and Dhanmondi police stations.

He came to the capital a homeless boy in 1988 from a village in Chandpur and lived for a while as a street urchin (Tokai, in vernacular slang). Eventually he got a job as a canteen-boy at Jahurul Haque Hall of Dhaka University (DU). But the nickname --Tokai -- became a permanent prefix to his name.

Mizan later started to work as carrier of arms and ammunition for the student political cadres staying at the DU dormitories and became close to Shamim Ahmed alias Pichchi Shamim, a kingpin of Bangladesh Chhatra League in the DU in early 1990s.

In 1999 Mizan shot at a deputy commissioner of police when a police team went to Jahurul Haque Hall to arrest him. That incident earned him notoriety enough to be considered a gangster. His killing of a leader of autorickshaw drivers, Ashik Goala, in Azimpur added to that status and adorned him with the title of 'Killer Mizan'.

As a close associate of Pichchi Shamim, he had run all the key crime routines including arms purchase, toll collection, establishing control over auto-rickshaw stands, committing necessary murders, tender snatching, threatening, blackmailing and occupying DU dorms until his arrest in 2000.

Police shot and arrested him at Dhaka City Corporation office as he tried to bar other contractors from filing tenders for a contract. He received about seven bullets in the incident and was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment. He was released from Dhaka Central Jail just five months ago.

While in prison, he became acquainted with other top-notch criminals and underworld dons that helped him after coming out of the jail to build and run a criminal network comprising a core team of 60 accomplices of Lalbagh, Mohammadpur, Dhanmondi, Arambagh and Mirpur areas.

Sources said he worked mostly as a gunman for political leaders regardless of party identity. He was also known to be directly involved in electioneering of a recently elected lawmaker of a constituency in the capital.