DHAKA: A would-be hijacker shot and killed by Bangladesh commandos was carrying a fake gun and told negotiators he wanted to commandeer a Dubai-bound flight because he had troubles with his wife, officials said on Monday.

The 25-year-old was shot and later died from his wounds after taking a crew member hostage on the Biman Airlines jet, forcing it to make an emergency landing at Chittagong airport late Sunday.

Some 134 passengers and 14 crew were released unharmed after an operation that lasted barely 10 minutes.

Airport manager Wing Commander Sarwar-i-Jaman said the hijacker was “psychologically imbalanced”.

“The reason he gave for the hijack was that he had troubles with his wife and he wanted to talk to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina,” Sarwar told AFP.

Flight BG 147 was going from Dhaka to Dubai via Chittagong when the hijacking started.

The man reportedly wielded a gun in the cabin and tried to storm the cockpit, forcing an emergency landing.

One passenger told reporters he may have fired the weapon twice, but civil aviation authority chairman Air Vice Marshall Nayeem Hasan said the gun he was carrying was not real.

“According to those who have seen it, it appears that the gun was fake,” Hasan said.

Bangladesh’s elite police unit, the Rapid Action Battalion, meanwhile identified the suspect as Mohammad Polash Ahmed from Narayanganj, just outside the capital Dhaka.

“His details matched a criminal on our database,” the RAB said in a statement, adding he was arrested in 2012 over an abduction case and served 20 days in prison.

Ahmed’s father, Piar Jahan, told AFP that his son married a Bangladeshi film star just under a year ago without the consent of the family.

Jahan said he was not sure if his son, who was an aspiring actor, was having relationship troubles with his wife, who goes by the name Shimla. The actress was not immediately available for comment.

Intimate images purportedly of the pair have gone viral on social media since the hijacking late Sunday.

Amid multiple investigations, authorities are focusing on how Ahmed managed to smuggle even a fake gun past security at Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2019