Once both of them were listed criminals of Narayanganj police department but later a mutually beneficial relationship developed between the duo and a section of members of law enforcement agencies; much to the surprise of many.
One of them is a much-talked-about name Nur Hossain, the prime accused of Narayanganj seven murders.
The other is Md Motiur Rahman Moti who is not accused in the chilling murders but in a widely circulated poster in the port city Narayanganj prominently publicised him as a killer of seven murders along with Nur and demanded their execution.
Earlier, they went into hiding when the BNP-Jamaat alliance came to power in October 2001 and remained a fugitive until the army-backed caretaker government relinquished power in 2008.
Both Nur and Moti left Bangladesh at that time to evade arrest as they were accused in many cases and most wanted criminals on the list of police.
Even the police department sought help from the Interpol, world’s largest international police organisation, to nab Nur Hossain and accordingly the Interpol issued red alerts around the world to help Bangladesh police but to no avail.
This time too they both went into hiding. Moti feared he might be arrested too as posters were put up in the district in which he was branded as a killer of seven people including panel mayor Nazrul.
Nur Hossain has already been arrested by Indian police but there is no similar move to capture Moti. However, Narayanganj police and district criminal investigation department (CID) men went to his home and office in Siddhirganj area of Narayanganj to look for him.
Until the abductions and murders of the seven people on April 27 Nur and Moti had been enjoying all kinds of supports from the local civil and police administration since the ruling Awami League assumed power in 2009 as both of them belong to the ruling party with the blessings of influential local Awami League leader and lawmaker Shamim Osman.
The friendship between the duo and local administration reached such a personal level that the police department did not even feel hesitant to take money publicly from Nur and Moti to publicise advertisement of their business establishment with their photographs in a very special magazine on the occasion of the Police Week 2014.
The Police Service Association published the magazine in March, the month before the seven murders. The same publication also carried the messages from the president, prime minister, advisers to the PM, minister, secretary and high police officials.
Interestingly, the editor of the publication was Syed Nurul Islam, who was withdrawn from the post of Narayanganj Superintendent of Police (SP) after the seven murders.
Nur and Moti gave a full-page advertisement with their own photographs in that memorabilia and wished all the success of Police Week which the force observes every year to accelerate its drive against crimes in a particular week.
“If someone is harmful to the public I will not take any monetary support from him such as money for advertisement for any publication of the police department. If I do so this will ruin the sanctity of my institution,” said incumbent SP of Narayanganj Dr Kh Mahid Uddin, who has been appointed after the withdrawal of Syed Nurul Islam.
“This (police force) is a 150-yeal-old institution. Taking help from a person who has a criminal profile will destroy the sanctity of this ancient force.
“I personally, being a police official, should not mingle with a person having criminal record while others may do so as long as they are not the part of their crimes.
Months after their advertisement on the police magazine Nur and Moti, Narayanganj police began to hunt them down led by their new SP.
Meantime, thousands of printed posters with photographs of the six accused with symbolic nooses around their necks were put up on the walls across Narayanganj demanding their trial and execution.
Of those, one large coloured poster prominently put Nur and Moti’s photographs in similar fashion of others branded them as killers of Narayanganj City Corporation councillor and panel Mayor Nazrul, advocate Chandan Sarker and five others.
Nur, after the seven murders, has already been exposed as the newly emerged “godfather” of Narayanganj who once was actively involved in Jatiya Party and BNP politics but in late 90s joined the Awami League. For the first time Nur’s underworld has widely been exposed by media after the seven murders.
Moti was not accused in the seven-murder case but as his picture appeared on the posters along with Nur he naturally came up in the discussion of the locals.
Moti was also involved in the Jatiya Party politics in late 80s as a labour leader of now-defunct Adamjee Jute Mills in Narayanganj, which is now Adamjee Export Processing Zone (AEPZ).
In 1990s Moti joined the Awami League politics and now he is the president of Siddhirganj Thana Jubo League, the youth wing of the Awami League.
A group of plainclothes officials of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police went to Moti’s luxurious home and office at Siddhirganj weeks ago to look for him.
Though Moti’s wife Rokeya Rahman, 43, told the Dhaka Tribune police did not go inside their home and they only went past their house.
When on June 10 afternoon these correspondents arrived at Moti’s house Rokeya initially was unwilling to talk but at one point she agreed to speak out and asked the newsmen to be seated in her house.
Rokeya said she performed Hajj thrice and her husband Moti too performed it several times.
In praise of her husband and to authenticate her claim that the goodness of her husband, she told this correspondent that Moti sponsored many locals to perform Hajj in Saudia Arabia on different times.
“Currently there is no case against my husband” and as for the previous cases, she said, they had all been quashed.”
Claiming her husband as an innocent person, Rokey said it was a conspiracy of a group of local rivals of Moti in the BNP and Awami League who are putting the blame of seven murders on him.
Moti’s wife said, when the BNP came to power in 2001 Moti left the country and returned in 2009 with the Awami League coming to power.
Between 2001 and 2009 Moti stayed in Africa, Dubai and Kolkata. Two of her three children also studied in Kolkata at that time and she used to visit Kolkata along with her youngest child to meet her husband and other children.
She blamed a former BNP lawmaker’s men for looting almost everything even ceiling fans from their house between 2001 and 2006 when she used to live in her parents’ house which is only a stone’s throw from her house.
However, the correspondent of the Dhaka Tribune found her house decorated with expensive luxurious furniture. Moti’s office in rural area of Siddhirganj looks more like a luxurious corporate office from the capital’s posh area.
Rokeya said, Moti only does some business with the under-construction project of Orion Pharmaceuticals and in a 110-megawatt power plant. Both the business projects are within close proximity of Moti’s house and office.
But many locals who have well knowledge of the rise of Moti said, Moti had become a millionaire within a very short period.
Moti was merely a worker and a CBA (collective bargaining agent) leader in Adamjee Jute Mill at the end of military dictator HM Ershad’s regime in 1990.
Not only the locals but also police know Moti as a close associate of Nur and they are partner of many underworld activities. After their return Moti and Nur established their control over Adamjee EPZ.
In February Nur and Moti’s men grabbed six of eight truck-loaded Jhut (scrapped textile of garment factories in the EPZ) of slain Nazrul in the EPZ. Nazrul complained about this to local police and a conflict over the issue was going on between Nazrul, Nur and Moti.
Ehsan Uddin Chowdhury, an assistant superintendent of police of CID in Narayanganj, told the Dhaka Tribune, they raided Moti’s house to arrest him in the afternoon of May 15.
The CID official told the Dhaka Tribune they went to arrest Moti from his home with an aim to rid the Adamzee EPZ of his control and ensure a proper working environment there. But the CID failed to arrest Moti.
Rokeya, wife of Moti, however denied any police raid at their home but said she and other family members advised Moti to leave home as a conspiracy was going on against him.
“Now I don’t know his (Moti) whereabouts, his mobile remains switched off and once in a while he calls me,” Roheya said. When these correspondent reached Moti’s luxurious office nearby his home they found few local Awami League and Jubo League leaders there.
Kalipada Mallick, 60, introduced him as acting general secretary of Siddhirganj Thana Awami League as they expelled their general secretary Yasin Molla from the committee after his name came up as an accused in the seven-murder case.
Nur Hossain was the vice-president of the same Awami League committee. He was also expelled on the same ground.
Kalipada and a local Jubo League leader Malek Khandakar spoke highly about Moti and said it was a conspiracy of the BNP and Jamaat against Moti to destroy the Awami League in Siddhirganj as Moti is very popular there.
Moti could not win the election as a councillor in Narayanganj City Corporation polls in 2011.
Kalipada and Malek said Shamim Osman brought Moti into the politics of the Awami League after the fall of Ershad. They did not agree that Shamim Osman also brought Nur into the Awami League politics in late 90s but it was to the best knowledge of the locals.
Kalipada and Malek were critical of Nur. Malek repeatedly said Moti was a very good soul. “Moti along with 24 others helped me go to Saudi Arabia to perform Omra Hajj. Moti was also planning to organise some Islamic programmes in our locality.” They said Moti was a follower of Shamim Osman.
“You will never find any poster of Moti without Shamim Osman’s photograph but you can see posters of Nur Hossain without Shamim.”
When asked why they had never raised their voices against Nur they said: “No journalist had written anything against Nur before the seven murders; they did not raise any question about him, rather the journalists including some from Dhaka used to come to Nur’s house to take money from him.”
After the seven murders many people in Narayanganj including some influential people in local administration said many officials in the district administration and law enforcement agencies used to receive bribe daily or monthly basis from Nur.
Interestingly, when these correspondents along with a Dhaka Tribune photojournalist was about to leave Moti’s house after a long interview with his wife Rokeya, she suddenly offered a bunch of new notes of Tk1000 to the correspondents.
She repeatedly requested the correspondents to take the money and tried to stuff those forcibly into their hands.
“You are my brothers; take this money as your food and transport expenses,” she pleaded.