The prime accused in the case filed in connection with last month’s attack on the convoy of Cultural Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Noor was found dead in Nilphamari yesterday.
Our Nilphamari correspondent reported that the local villagers of Palash Bari had first seen the body of Golam Rabbani, 35, of the neigbouring Dubachuri village, near a bamboo cluster in a local crematory at first around 6am. They later informed police.
Police recovered the body around 8:30am, said Sub-Inspector Asad of the Sadar police station, adding that the body had several injury marks on the head, cheek and throat.
Rabbani was reportedly hiding at his uncle’s house in Durgam Bargasin village in Tentulia upazila of Panchagarh after he was accused in five cases in the attack, his family claimed.
“Around 15 people, carrying arms and identifying themselves as members of the RAB, went to the uncle’s house and took Rabbani Awayon Wednesday,” said Shahana, wife of the deceased.
Shahana came to know about it over mobile phone but the people in the uncle’s house were not sure whether the armed people were RAB personnel or not.
“The people who picked up Rabbani were in plain clothes. So, they might be Awami League criminals,” she claimed.
According to the local villagers of Nilphamari,local BNP leader Rabbani was also an extortionist. He joined Jamaat nearly three months ago.
Five people, including four local Awami League men, were killed when activists of Jamaat-Shibir attacked Noor’s motorcade on December 14 last year.
Noor was returning to Nilphamari town after visiting Laxmichap, Shishatoli and Palash Bari villages where Jamaat men had torched shops and storehouses belonging to Hindus and Awami League activistson December 12.
Shibir man killed in Satkhira
In a separate incident, a Shibir man was killed in a shootout with joint forces in Satkhira yesterday.
Satkhira police said Abu Hanif Chhoton, 16, an activist of Islami Chhatra Shibir, was killed as the joint forces were locked in a gun battle in Sadar upazila before the Fazr prayers.
Choton was a resident of the Padmasakra area of the upazila, reported our Satkhira correspondent.
Enamul Haque, OC of Sadar police station, said the joint forces personnel raided the area on information that Jamaat-Shibir men had been calling upon the people of Padmasakra village using loudspeakers of local mosques to organise and conduct subversive activities.
“When they were heading towards the village, the Jamaat-Shibir men attacked them at Purba Bhomra, nearly a kilometer away from Padmasakra,”the OC claimed.
The Jamaat-Shibir men hurled several crude bombs and fired 11 rounds of bullets, prompting the law enforcers to retaliate with around 25, he added.
After the gunfight that lasted for around 15 minutes, they found bullet-hit Chhoton lying on a pool of blood. He was rushed to the Satkhira Sadar Hospital where the on-duty doctors declared him dead, the OC said.
He claimed that Chhoton had been involved in a petrol bomb attack on a truck at Bhomra port which left the driver critically burnt. Our correspondent could not reach any of the local Jamaat leaders.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to hold a rally on January 20 in the violence-hit district and visit the families of the victims, who recently came under Jamaat-Shibir attacks.
