The investigation into the murder of Fulgazi chairman Ekramul Haque Ekarm fails to gather pace as police are yet to detain Jahangir Mohammad Adel, one of the alleged masterminds behind the killing.
Jahangir Mohammad Adel is the joint general Secretary of Feni district unit Awami League.
A close associate of the ruling party lawmaker Nizam Uddin Hazari, the district unit leader gave the go-ahead to the field-level mastermind, Jihad Chowdhury, to carry out the murder, according to investigators and statements obtained from the arrestees on remand.
The investigators also found that Nizam and Jahangir had been communicating with each other through cellphone just the day before the incident.
Even the main attacker, Abdiul Islam Abid, in his confessional statement, mentioned that just after the killing he contacted Nizam and Jahangir first to discuss how to get rid of this problem.
The investigators appear to be quite confident that the case could be resolved soon following the arrest of Jahangir who is on the run.
The probe bodies have already interrogated Mahtab Uddin Chowdhury Minar, prime suspect of the case, and Jihad Chowdhury, field-level mastermind, by sitting them together, but failed to make any breakthrough.
They, however, found similarity with the facts that came out from the arrestees’ confessional statements.
Jihad during interrogation mentioned that he contacted Minar before and after the murder while Minar confessed that he received a call from his elder brother’s son Anik, who was present on the spot, and who confirmed that Ekram was dead.
Asked about his arrest, Abul Kalam Azad, inspector of Feni Model police station and investigation officer of the case, told the Dhaka Tribune, “We are in search of Jahangir, and have already raided his house for putting him under arrest.
Although police claimed that they were trying to arrest Jahangir, locals in Feni and family members of Ekram accused police of having double standard.
Locals said they found Jahangir in the district and even he was found taking food last Wednesday evening at Atithi hotel situated just in front of Feni Model police station.
Feni Police Super Paritosh Gosh, however, refused the allegation against police.
He said: “We are still analysing statements from the arrestees and investigation in this regard is underway.”
Meanwhile, Feni police yesterday took another suspect of the case Belal Hossain Patowari, an Awami League leader, on a five-day remand.
Around 22 persons were arrested in the case so far, and of them, 18 were on remand while four gave confessional statements at the court under section 164.
