The visting four-member team of Japanese police, who arrived in Dhaka on Monday and is now in Rangpur to help local police investigate the murder of Hoshi Kunio, did not receive the dead body until yesterday.
The team went to the Rangpur Medical College Hospital around 9:30pm yesterday. They did not take the dead body but came out around an hour later with a big black suitcase, which they took in their microbus, and went back to the Rangpur Parjatan Motel, where they are staying.
Witnesses said that the suitcase appeared to have something heavy inside but no hospital stuff or police official was available last night to clarify on the matter.
Local sources said the Japanese investigators came to Rangpur in the morning but had not yet visited the crime scene.
Earlier in the day, this correspondent visited the crime scene and saw that the place was cordoned off with police tape. Local police have also kept the spot covered in polythene sheet so that evidence does not get washed away if there is rain.
The residents of the adjacent villages are mostly paddy growers.
The male members of most of the houses are away on part-time jobs in faraway districts – something that they do at this time of the year after they are down with sowing paddy saplings.
It is now time for the saplings to grow and hence there is very little activities in the fields apart from watering them.
Local women told this correspondent that this is one reason that the area remains deserted at this time of the year and the killers of Hoshi might have taken advantage of this and fled easily.
BNP leader remanded
A court in Rangpur yesterday granted police 10-day remand for two suspects.
One of them is Rashidunnabi Khan Biplob, a local BNP leader and brother of BNP’s central Habibunnabi Khan Shohel.
The second suspect is Humayun Kabir Hira, business partner of Hoshi and brother-in-law of Hoshi’s house-owner Jakaria.
Biplob’s wife Shirin Khatun Diba said plainclothes men had picked her husband up in the afternoon of Saturday, the day of the murder.
Meanwhile, Hira’s wife Sultana Khatun alleged that her husband was being tortured in custody. “They are trying to make my husband confess to the killing.”
Police sources said the two remanded suspects were being kept in the lockup of the Kotowali police station for security reasons.
When contacted, OC of the Kotowali police station declined making any comments. He also advised this correspondent to contact the Kawnia police station. “We are not involved in the case,” the OC said.
The place where Kunio Hoshi, 65, was murdered on Saturday falls under the jurisdiction of the Kawnia police station.
