Police have filed three cases over the killing of Jamaat activist Nurul Islam Shahin in an alleged “shootout,” although his family claimed that he was killed by law enforcers.
Sub-Inspector Monowar Uzzaman from the Motihar police station in Rajshahi filed the murder, explosives and arms cases on Wednesday night, charging around 20-22 unnamed Jamaat-Shibir activists.
Motihar OC Alamgir Hossain said they conducted a drive to nab Shahin’s cohorts, who tried to snatch him from police custody. That triggered a gunfight in which the Jamaat leader was killed.
However, Shahin’s family alleged that police murdered Shahin in cold blood and then cooked up a story.
His brother Fazlul Haque Tuhin told the Dhaka Tribune that it was nothing bu a display of police’s “double standard;” police kill people then cook up shootout stories.
He said they were planning to file a murder case in this regard.
Tuhin alleged that men from the Detective Branch (DB) of Rajshahi Metropolitan Police (RMP) picked up his brother from their press in the city around 9pm on Tuesday.
He said when they contacted the DB office on Tuesday night, they were told that Nurul Islam would be released the following morning. However, on Wednesday morning, they got a call from the Rajshahi Medical College Hospital (RMCH) that Nurul’s dead body had been kept there.
However, RMP Commissioner Muhammad Shamsudddin claimed at a press briefing at their headquarters that Shahin succumbed to injuries that he sustained in a “gunfight.”
“Detectives arrested Nurul Islam from a printing press, which he ran alongside teaching Islamic Studies at the Islamia Degree College in Rajshahi, at Malopara at 9pm Tuesday.
“Around 2am on Wednesday, a team from the Detective Branch of police took him to the Nolkhola Ashrafer Mor to arrest his cohorts and recover firearms. But sensing police’s presence, his cohorts opened fire, hurled several crude bombs and tried to snatch Nurul, prompting the DB men to open fire in retaliation. Shahin got bullet-hit in the gunfight.
“Later, Shahin succumbed to his injuries after being rushed to the RMCH,” the RMB boss said.
Shahin was a former president of Rajshahi city’s ward number 30 unit of Jamaat-e-Islami.
The party has called a 36-hour hartal starting Saturday in eight districts of the Rajshahi Division in protest of the killing.
