The family of Mezbah Uddin alias Tarek, who was killed in an alleged gunfight with detective police last month in the capital, claimed yesterday that he had actually been beaten to death by law enforcers.
Tarek’s father Abu Zafar aired the allegation from a presser at the capital’s National Press Club. The Detective Branch (DB) of police however denied the allegations.
According to DB, who could not confirm whether he was wanted in any case, Tarek was a rising arms dealer active in the capital’s Kadomtoli and Matuail areas.
A DB press release issued on September 14, the day of the death, said “Tarek Masud” was arrested in the Kodomtoli area around 2:30am. Based on information provided by Tarek, detectives conducted several drives in those areas by 7am that day. He was killed in a typical “gunfight” during one of those drives in the Mugda area.
Tarek’s name was later corrected in the documents.
However, Tarek’s father Abu Zafar claimed yesterday that the “murder” of his son was a result of a conflict of interest between their family and a female police official centring a piece of land near their residence in Donia near Jatrabari in the capital.
Zafar read out a written statement which said their family owned a 1.5 bigha land near their residence in Donia and the female police official owned a bigger land right beside their property.
For a long time, the policewoman and her husband had been exerting pressure on their family to sell the land to them, Zafar said, alleging that his son had been picked up and killed by DB because they had refused.
Later last night, Zafar told the Dhaka Tribune over phone that for the last two years, Bangladesh Bank Joint Director Khairul Alam Tutul, husband of Salma Begum Jolly, a commanding officer of the Armed Police Battalion (APBn) in Dhaka, had been trying to pursue them to give up the land.
Zafar said Tutul’s brother-in-law Abdul Ahad Sohrab had visited their place and told them that they would be in big trouble if Jolly started taking care of the issue.
“The problem was that because of our land, Tutul cannot get a direct connecting road to the main road. Seven days before the crossfire, Tutul came here and asked us either to buy his land or sell ours to him,” Zafar said over phone.
“He also threatened that he would get one of my two sons abducted unless we entertained his demand. That is why we suspect that DB killed my son,” he said.
During yesterday’s press conference, Zafar said: “I went to the Kodomtoli police station to file a case against the police officials and some others following the murder of my son. But police did not record the case. Later I went to a court who had fixed October 16 for hearing in the issue.”
He later told over phone that Tutul’s brother-in-law Sohrab had threatened him and his family after learning that they had sought justice from the judiciary.
When contacted, Tutul told the Dhaka Tribune that he had been living in the capital’s Pallabi near Mirpur for the last 13 years. “After my mother died, I decided to sell the land,” he claimed.
“In fact, Zafar had been trying to pursue me to sell my land. He has good terms with a land broker named Jamal Sardar. After I turned his proposal down, he tried to frame me with the shootout,” he alleged.
“My wife has no connection or involvement with these incidents,” he claimed.
The Dhaka Tribune talked to Zafar on September 14 as well. On that day, he said they went to the DB office a few hours after Tarek had been picked up around 2am. They waited there until the evening but nobody from DB could tell them what had happened to Tarek. But by that time, his dead body had already been sent to the Dhaka Medical College morgue.
Late in the evening, a DB official asked them to contact the Kodomtoli police station. When they went there, the OC advised them to go to the DMC morgue.
Eventually, much later in the night, the DB issued a press release claiming that Tarek had been killed in a “shootout.” By then, Tarek’s family had already found his dead body in the morgue.
Morgue findings
On September 14, DMCH sources informed the Dhaka Tribune that Tarek had bullet injuries in his mouth and on his chest and several bruises on his body, which was left at the morgue in the morning.
DB’s version of the shootout
According to the DB press release, Tarek was picked up from Kodomtoli around 2:30am on charges of selling illegal arms. During primary interrogation, Tarek confessed that he was an active member of arms dealer Chandi Sumon and Killer Shamim of Kodomtoli and Matuail areas.
A DB team took Tarek with them and conducted several raids to recover arms from Tarek’s cohorts. Around 7am, they went to the Balur Math area in Manda Green Model Town. Soon after they reached the spot, Tarek picked up a pistol from one of his cohorts and started firing at the detectives. His cohorts also joined him and the law enforcers retaliated with gunshots, the DB police claimed.
At one stage, the DB claimed, all the criminals fled the spot and Tarek was found lying on the ground, bullet-hit. Mughda police then took him to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital where he was declared dead.
When contacted yesterday, Sheikh Nazmul Alam, a deputy commissioner of police, snuffed out the allegations but said they would look into the mater.
Abdus Salam, OC of the Kodomtoli police station, said they had no criminal record against Tarek.
“Probably his name has come up in the list of criminals prepared by the DB,” he told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.