Four eminent personalities including International Crime Tribunal prosecutor Rana Dasgupta and Chittagong Premier University’s Vice-Chancellor Dr Anupam Sen got death threats allegedly from banned militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team on Wednesday morning.
The two others are Chittagong court’s additional public prosecutors Ashok Kumar Das and Chandan Bishwas, said police.
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Advocate Ashok, former general secretary of Chittagong District BAR Association, told the Dhaka Tribune that he received an SMS on his mobile phone at 7:34am from 01876214694.
“The message said my family and I are targeted from tomorrow [Thursday] while Dr Anupam Sen and advocate Rana Das are the next targets,” he said, adding that the sender’s identity was mentioned as Ansarullah Bangla Team.
“The SMS also remarked us as agents of India,” Ashok said.
The lawyer lodged a general dairy with Kotwali police in this connection. He said that the police were providing him adequate security.
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Advocate Chandan, assistant secretary of the central committee of Hindu Buddhist Christian Oikyo Parishad, said he also received the same SMS from the same number at 7:35am.
“I do not know who sent the SMS. I will lodge a general dairy,” he said.
Dr Anupam, also a renowned social scientist and educationalist who was rewarded Ekushey Padak in 2014, said that he did not get such message but was informed by lawyer Ashok.
“My mobile phone was switched off when Ashok got the SMS,” he said, adding that he became alert after hearing such matter.
Rana Dasgupta, also a renowned human right organiser and general secretary of the central committee of Hindu Buddhist Christian Oikyo Parishad, said that he received such threats many times in the past.
“I filed GDs with Kotwali police in Chittagong and Shahbag police in Dhaka earlier but the police could not find the message senders or the key players behind this. Now I do not care about such threats,” he said.
Kotwali police Officer-in-Charge Md Jasim Uddin said that they were looking into the matter seriously.
Chittagong Metropolitan Police’s Additional Commissioner (crime and operation) Devdas Bhattachariya said that they were working to track the sender apart from arranging security measures for the threatened persons.
Ansarullah Bangla Team, a banned Islamist militant outfit, issued a number of letters earlier, threatening to kill the eminent personalities, most of whom are known as war crimes trial camapigners and secular activists.
This outfit has claimed responsibility for the murders of several secular activists since 2013. The victims are Ahmed Rajeeb Haider, Ashraful Alam, RU teacher Prof AKM Shafiul Islam, Avijit Roy, Oyasiqur Rahman Babu, Ananta Bijoy Das and Niladri Chatterjee, also known as Niloy Neel..
Ansarullah has said that it shares the common goal of establishing shariah law with international militant groups al-Qaeda, Islamic State (IS) and Taliban and local Islamist parties Jamaat-e-Islami and Hefazat-e-Islam.
Recently, the police have also found that this outfit was involved in the bloody bank heist in Ashulia near Dhaka.
