The bullet-riddled body which police claimed to have had recovered from a slope of an embankment in the capital’s Rupnagar on Friday was identified as a Chhatra Dal leader of Bhola yesterday.
Tawhidul Islam, who introduced himself as the victim’s maternal uncle, identified the body as Md Ariful Islam, 20, an LLB student at International Islamic University’s Dhanmondi campus in Dhaka.
Tawhidul said Ariful resided in a students’ mess at East Rajabazar near Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in the capital. He was the library affairs secretary of Chhatra Dal’s Char Fasion unit.
According to Tawhidul, on January 29, Ariful went to visit his house at Gopibagh. Later in the evening, they went to Sadarghat terminal to buy a ticket as Ariful was going home in Bhola.
“Arif booked a cabin in the Karnaphuli 4 launch. I stayed with him until he boarded the launch; then I went home.”
He claimed someone had called him that night from Arif’s mobile phone and informed that he (Arif) was picked-up by police in plain clothes from the launch. The person did not disclose his identity and since then the phone ha been switched off.
He said: “We have been looking for him since then, but could not find him. Finally we found the body at Dhaka Medical College morgue.”
Contacted, Sub-Inspector Monirul Islam of Rupnagar police station refuted the claim that police might have picked him up from the launch and said an investigation was under process.