Bangladeshi expatriates living in Jeddah yesterday informed embassy officials that one of the suspects in the brutal beating to death of a Sylheti boy was hiding in the Saudi Arabian city, leading to his capture.
Kamrul Islam, one of the four accused for killing 13-year-old Rajon in Sylhet five days ago, was caught and handed over to local police by Bangladeshi embassy officials and expatriates in Jeddah.
Mokammel Hossain, Bangladesh’s labour counsellor in Jeddah, along with two other officials and several expatriates, got hold of Kamrul and handed him over to Saudi police around 8pm yesterday.
During initial questioning, Kamrul Islam admitted to his role in the boy’s killing, the labour counsellor told the Dhaka Tribune.
But it could not be immediately known when and how the alleged killer went to the Saudi Arabian capital. Bangladesh authorities imposed a ban on his leaving the country after his involvement with the barbaric killing came to the surface.
Earlier, Shahriar Alam, Bangladesh’s state minister for foreign affairs who is now in Saudi Arabia to attend the funeral of Prince Saud Al-Faisal, requested Bangladeshi expatriates and instructed embassy officials to be on the look out for Kamrul. When contacted over the phone, Mokammel told the Dhaka Tribune: “Since there are no cases filed against Kamrul in Saudi Arabia, Jeddah police will not keep him in their custody. But we have already taken steps to send Kamrul back. He can be arrested once he lands in Bangladesh.”
Bangladesh does not have an extradition treaty with Saudi Arabia. As a result, the government might only request the Saudi authorities to put the criminal on board a Bangladesh-bound aircraft. But the Saudi authorities will not take responsibility if he lands elsewhere and flees.
Autopsy
Ill-fated Sheikh Samiul Alam Rajon died from a brain hemorrhage, an autopsy report concluded yesterday, five days after he had been beaten to death.
Akhtar Hossain, OC of the Jalalabad police station in Sylhet, said they had got the autopsy report yesterday afternoon.
A total of 64 injury marks were spotted on Rajon’s body, the OC said quoting the report.
Rajon was tortured to death by a group of people at Kumargaon on the outskirts of Sylhet city around 7:30am on July 8.
Two of the tormentors, Muhit Alam and his cousin Ismail Hossain Ablus, have been arrested so far. A Sylhet court placed Muhit on five-day remand yesterday in the case filed over the murder.
A 28-minute video, recorded on a mobile phone camera, shows that the victim was tied to a pole in front of a workshop near the Dhaka-Sunamganj highway and had been tortured by five to six men.
Police later went to the spot, took Muhit into custody and recovered Rajon’s body from inside a microbus. The body was identified by Rajon’s family at the police station on Wednesday night.
The video surfaced on social media websites on Sunday, four days after the incident. Soon the video went viral and hundreds of thousands of people condemned the barbaric incident on social media, especially Facebook and Twitter.
A murder case was filed by Jalalabad police in which Rajon’s father later became a plaintiff. Muhit was listed as the prime accused in the case and his brother Kamrul Islam, 24, their accomplice Ali Haider, 34, and guard Moyna Miah, 45, were also charged with murder.
While talking to reporters in his office yesterday, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, state minister for home affairs, said that the murder was a tragic and pathetic incident. “One of the killers has already been taken on remand and another one arrested. The other responsible people will be brought to book soon,” he said.
Protests
Meanwhile, the residents of 22 villages in Sylhet issued a 12-hour ultimatum for the arrest of all the killers, otherwise they said they would go for a mass movement.
Our Sylhet correspondent reports that the ultimatum came after a two-hour meeting held at Rajon’s homestead in Bade Ali village. Hundreds of people from 22 neighbouring villages joined the meeting.
Reportedly, Jalalabad OC Akhtar Hossain also joined that meeting and assured Rajon’s family and neighbours that the killers would be arrested as soon as possible.
He later told reporters that police had been conducting drives to round up the accused who are still at large and had gone into hiding after the incident.
