A Ward-level BNP leader and a convicted drug dealer died in central jail in the capital early on Tuesday.
Jail guards claimed that they died of cardiac arrest. Police, however, said the cause of the deaths could be ascertained after conducting autopsy. The BNP leader was identified as Md Shahabuddin, 62, vice-president of 26 Lalbagh Ward. He lives in 22/A Dhakeshwari road of Chawk Bazar.
According to his family members, a team of Lalbagh police arrested him from in front of a kitchen market of Lalbagh on November 6 around 11:00am. He was later shown arrested in a case filed in connection with hartal violence including arson attacks on vehicles. The court sent him to the prison.
“He felt severe chest pain last night and we took him to Dhaka Medical College Hospital around 12:10am,” said a jail warden Mohammad Hanif. Doctors declared him dead on arrival. Shahabuddin left behind three sons and wife.
Officer-in-Charge of Chawk Bazar Police Station Azizul Haque said the body had been sent to Dhaka Medical College morgue for autopsy. Contacted, Badiul Alam, younger brother of Shahabuddin said, he was indicted in a fabricated case. But he did not bring any allegation of torture in jail.
In another incident a convicted Asadur Rahman Asad was declared dead by the DMCH doctors around 9:00am on Tuesday when he was brought there in an unconscious state from Dhaka Central Jail.
Asad, son of late Jillur Rahman of Sonadanga Khulna, has been serving a 35-year jail term for drug dealing.
