A Dhaka court on Friday placed Arfan Ullah Damal, the second suspect in the murder of Awami League leader Jahidul Islam Tipu and a female college student in Shahjahanpur, on one-day remand in an arms case.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Begum Yeasmin Ara passed the order.
Suspect Arfan Ullah Damal was held from the capital’s Kamalapur late on Thursday, said Detective Branch Deputy Commissioner Rifat Rahman Shamim.
A revolver was found on the suspect, according to the police officer.
A case was filed against Arfan Ullah under the Arms Act at the Motijheel police station on Friday.
“Investigations revealed that he was involved in the planning of Tipu's murder. He is now formally arrested in an arms case. He will be further interrogated in remand,” Shamim said on Friday.
Later in the day, police produced the arrestee in a Dhaka court and pleaded for 10 days remand, The court, however, granted investigators one day.
Fifty-four-year-old Tipu was gunned down on the night of March 24 under a flyover outside Manama Bhaban in Shahjahanpur’s Amtala. A gunman wearing a helmet on a motorcycle pulled up next to Tipu’s car and opened fire.
Samia Afnan Prity, a 22-year-old student of Begum Badrunnesa Government Girls’ College, was killed when a stray bullet her.
Tipu’s wife, Farhana Islam Dolly, a Dhaka South City Corporation reserved ward councilor, started a case the next day against unidentified people. Tipu received a death threat over the phone four to five days before the attack, according to the case dossier.
Jahidul Islam Tipu and college student Samia Afnan Prity are seen in this combination of file photos obtained from the internetTipu, a former general secretary of the ruling party’s Motijheel unit, was one of the suspects in the 2013 murder of Jubo League leader Riazul Haque Khan Milky.
A gunman, who came on a motorcycle, shot dead Milky in front of a shopping mall in Dhaka's Gulshan. Investigators later dropped Tipu's name from the chargesheet.
Three days after Tipu's killing, the Detective Branch (DB) arrested one Masum Mohammad Akash from Bogra on March 27.
Investigators claimed Akash is a contract killer, who was hired to murder Tipu.
DB Additional Commissioner Hafiz Akhter told the media at the time that Akash was the “main killer” and that he was hired five days before the attack.
He, however, did not shed light on who had hired him or the motive behind the killing. "It may not just have been about the money. Perhaps he was assured of some other benefits. He has confessed to the murders,” Hafiz said then.
Akash in now being interrogated in custody after investigators were granted a seven-day remand by the court.