A Panchagarh court has placed the three suspects in the murder of Hindu priest Joggeshwar Roy in 15 days of remand in two cases.
Senior Judicial Magistrate Marzia Khatun issued the order after police produced the trio before the court yesterday afternoon.
Sources at the court said the cases’ investigation officer, Debiganj police station OC (investigation) Ayub Ali, said in his remand petition that the suspects – Khalilur Rahman, 45, Bablu Hossain, 40, and Jahangir Alam, 25 – had given valuable information to police during primary interrogation, and police needed more time to gather more information and verify them.
Ayub pleaded to place the suspects in 20 days of remand – 10 days for each cases – and the court granted 15 days in total for both the cases, the sources said.
Earlier, in a night-long drive on Sunday, police arrested Khalil and Bablu, activists of banned Islamist outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), and Jahangir, a Islami Chhatra Shibir activist, for their suspected involvement in the murder.
Joggeshwar, 50, was slaughtered with a machete on the balcony of his house on Sunday morning.
He was the head priest at the Sree Sree Sonto Gourio Temple in Debiganj upazila of the district.
The killers also shot Joggeshwar’s neighbour and another priest named Gopal Chandra Roy, 35, when he tried to save the head priest.
According to US-based jihadi activities monitoring website SITE Intelligent Group, Da’esh, also known as the Islamic State, claimed the responsibilty for the attack.
But law enforcers refuted the claim and suspect that this attack was part of the series of JMB attacks on religious leaders and establishments.
