A Swechchhasebak League leader has died in police custody, with his family claiming that he had been killed over political rivalry.
Forty-five-year-old Farhad Hossain, the organising secretary of Swechchhasebak League Dhaka City North unit, allegedly fell ill at the Dhaka Central Jail during the early hours of yesterday and was declared dead after being rushed to the DMCH around 6am.
Earlier on August 18, Farhad was arrested by the police during a raid to arrest suspects of the August 13 shooting at Dhaka’s Badda, which killed four people including three local ruling party activists.
Badda police station Officer-in-Charge MA Jalil said: “134 bottles of Phensedyl and 62 Yaba tablets were recovered from his [Farhad’s] office at the time of the arrest.”
Although the raid had been carried out to capture suspects of the Badda shooting, Farhad was sent to jail in a narcotics case, the OC added.
The exact cause of death could not be known as Farhad’s body was handed over to his family without any autopsy, after his relatives secured the proper clearance from authorities concerned.
But the deceased leader’s wife, Munmun Taslima Subarna, pointed her suspicions at law enforcers, saying the police had “done what they had to do.”
She claimed that Farhad had been killed as he was a strong candidate for top political positions. However, she did not mention names of any people who might have been behind the death of her husband.
Relatives of Farhad told the Dhaka Tribune that the Swechchhasebak League leader had been picked up by the DB police on August 18 and taken to the Cantonment police station.
The relatives said they first thought that Farhad was called to the station to have a political discussion, but later found out that he had been shown arrested in a drug-related case and sent to jail.
Earlier on August 13, unidentified gunmen shot and killed four people, including leaders of Awami League, Swechchhasebak League and Jubo League, at the capital’s Madhya Badda area.
On August 20, Badda unit Juba League activist Saiful Islam was killed in Gazipur during an alleged shootout with the police.