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The events on Tuesday in an unassuming area of Tangerang unfolded like an action sequence in a movie.

After police shot dead a man believed to be Dulmatin, one of Southast Asia’s most wanted terrorists, an employee at the Multiplus shop where the confrontation took place said he had never seen anything like it in his life.

“Our manager, Ibu Linda, told me that Dulmatin took her hostage on the second floor of the shop when the raid occurred, [before] he was shot,” said Faud, 20.

A police source, who said they had been staking out the area for a month, said the suspect arrived on a motorcycle with a girl. Not long after, 15 police officers raided the second floor of the shop. Fuad added that before the raid he had witnessed police “forcibly removing” a woman from a nearby hair salon in the vicinity.

“The woman at Rinova [salon] was in a green T-shirt. Her hair had cream on it and was wet. Police forced her to enter a car,” Fuad said, adding that when antiterror police arrived he heard four gunshots before he fled to a nearby food stall to take refuge.

He described the olive-skinned man believed to be Dulmatin as 170 cm tall, bearded, with a large build and regularly dressed in “black-colored” trousers or shirts. “He never paid for parking,” Fuad said, adding that he often arrived at the shop at about 9 p.m.

Following the gunfire, police raided a home believed to be occupied by a man identified only as “Dr. Fauzi” in a Pamulang alley. Officers emerged from the house with two men in custody, both in their underwear.

“Police also shot two people on a motorcycle near Asem; a man and a woman,” said Sumirah, a local resident.

Separately, neighborhood leader Zaini said police had taken three children of Fauzi into protective custody.

A neighbor, 58-year-old Oni Sahroni, said Fauzi’s guests were often “bearded men and women in veils.”

“They say they hold prayers. But we don’t hear any sounds emanating from the house,” Oni said, adding that Fauzi was a follower of the teaching of Abu Jibril, the father of Muhammad Jibril, who is currently being tried for his alleged involvement in the July 17 hotel bombings in Jakarta.

Abu arrived at the scene to confirm that Fauzi often came to hear his teachings.

“He would arrive at dawn. But if he was up to something that goes against my teachings, I was never aware of it,” he said.