Two Bangladeshi expatriates from Narayanganj and Thakurgaon have been shot dead by miscreants in South Africa. Another expatriate was seriously injured in the incident.
The incident took place on Tuesday evening in an area called Mafiking in the country's North West Province. The Bangladeshis used to do business in that area.
The deceased were identified as Abdur Rahman, 28, from Baliadangi upazila in Thakurgaon and Emon Ahmed, 30, from Rupganj upazila in Narayanganj. Rubel Hossain, 30, from Narayanganj was severely injured in the incident.
He is undergoing treatment in a hospital in South Africa and is in critical condition.
Narayanganj District Superintendent of Police Zaidul told Dhaka Tribune that the authorities had not received much information about the incident yet.
The incident was reported in South Bangla, a Facebook group of Bangladeshi expatriates in South Africa at 1:00am on Tuesday.
From this post, Abdur Rahman’s elder brother Kamal Hossain identified him by seeing his picture.
He had then confirmed the matter through relatives of Narayanganj’s Emon, who was also killed in the same incident.
Rubel Hossain severely injured in Mafiking area of South Africa on November 17, 2020 | Dhaka TribuneKabir, another brother of Rahman, passed on the information to Dhaka Tribune.
Quoting some Bangladeshi expatriates in South Africa, Abdur Rahman's family said that two groups of Bangladeshis had been in conflict over business related issues for a long time.
After failing to resolve the issue locally, the Bangladeshi community there approached the Bangladesh embassy in South Africa.
The embassy also failed to resolve the issue despite making several attempts to do so. The opposing group then hired hitmen to kill the victims.
Rahman's family has demanded exemplary punishment for such murders. It has informed Baliadangi police station, said Rahman's brother Kabir.
“We are trying to find out details of the incident and bring the body back to Bangladesh,” he added.
Thakurgaon Additional Deputy Commissioner Sarbik Nur Qutubul Alam said: “We came to know about the incident from someone over phone and asked Baliadangi UNO Md Jobayer Hossain to take action in this regard.”
Deputy Commissioner Dr KM Kamruzzaman Selim said the Thakurgaon district administration was ready to fully cooperate with the Bangladesh embassy in South Africa through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Earlier on Sunday, a businessman named Mizanur Rahman, 30, was killed after he was suffocated when his face was covered with polythene in Salawa area of Nampula province in South Africa.