On the evening of July 31, 2020, police stopped a vehicle, which was being driven by Maj (retd) Sinha Md Rashed Khan, in Teknaf. Fearing that a search would reveal his stash of drugs, Sinha brandished a firearm at the law enforcement officials, and they were forced to kill the former army man.
This was the cooked-up story that a group of corrupt policemen attempted to feed the entire country.
Like all good lies, the fabricated story contains an element of truth. The policemen were indeed forced to kill Maj Sinha, but not because he had opened fire on them, which he never did. He had simply got wind of their illegal activities.
Sinha, who had served with the Special Security Force (SSF) tasked with guarding the president and the prime minister, went into early retirement to pursue his dream of making travel documentaries. He had travelled to Cox’s Bazar with his team to shoot one such documentary for his YouTube channel.
Sinha and his team had been staying at a resort in Cox’s Bazar’s Himchhari for around a month.
While shooting the documentary, Sinha and team learned of then Teknaf police station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Pradeep Kumar Das’s ties to illegal activities, including the cross-border drug trade from Myanmar.
The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) completed its investigation into the murder on December 22.
According to the investigation, locals had opened up to Sinha about the oppression they faced at the hands of Pradeep because the retired major was extremely friendly. They told Sinha of how Pradeep’s cohorts killed people and framed them as criminals to cover up their own collusion with criminal syndicates.
Investigators found that days before Sinha was shot dead, Pradeep had threatened to "destroy" him unless he left the area.
“Despite facing threats from Pradeep and his associates, Sinha refused to stop digging,” RAB (legal and media wing) Director Lt Col Ashique Billah said at the time.
Unable to dissuade Sinha, Pradeep began to plan his murder at secret meetings with then Baharchhara Investigation Centre Inspector Liaqat Ali and three informants.
According to Shahedul Islam Sifat, a member of Sinha’s film crew and witness to the murder, three of them, including Sinha, were returning to Cox's Bazar via Marine Drive after taking video footage of Muinya hill in the Marishbunia area of Baharchhara union in Teknaf on the day of the murder.
Sifat said they were first stopped at an Armed Police Battalion (APBn) check post in Shamlapur, where the duty officers let them go unimpeded. However, the car was stopped again by Teknaf police a short while later.
“I saw Sinha leaving his handgun in the car when he got down. He came out of the car with his hands over his head,” said Sifat in an interview with a TV channel after the incident.
“When we were pulling up the windows of our car door, he [Liaqat] came. He asked for our identities again. When we gave our identities, they placed a drum in front of our car to block us and asked us to get down from the car.”
"I started walking towards the back of the car after stepping out. Sinha also got down. I heard him saying, ‘Calm down, calm down’,” Sifat added. “Moments later, I heard the gunshots. I saw Sinha lying on the ground. At first, I thought the bullet had not hit him, that it was just blank fire. Then I noticed Sinha in a pool of blood.”
