An allegedly illegal arms trader was killed in a “mysterious” shootout with the plainclothes members of the Detective Branch (DB) of police at Mugda in the capital yesterday.
Though DB police claimed that Mesbah Uddin Tarek, 26, was an illegal arms trader, but Mugda police could not say whether he was such a criminal and involved in any other crime in the past.
Masudur Rahman, Deputy Commissioner (DC) of DMP said a team of DB arrested Tarek from a house at Shyampur and took him to Green Model Town area in the morning to recover illegal arms there.
After the DB team had reached there, his cohorts launched an attack, triggering a gunfight, he said.
DC Masud said Tarek was caught in the line of fire and was critically injured in a bullet hit early in the morning. He later died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital around 11am.
A pistol and two bullets were recovered from the spot, he said.
Though Tarek was identified as Mesbah Uddin Tarek in the end, Mugda police station Sub-Inspector Ajmal Hossain had initially told the Dhaka Tribune: “The youth's name is Masud Tarek. His age is 26. He used to live in Kadamtoli. That's all I know.”
Mugda police allegedly did not know about this incident previously. They were informed of the victim only after the shootout took place. Even the DB police provided them with the victim's name and age.
He said he did not know if the victim was accused in any case or had any criminal background. Around 7:30pm Tarek's father Abu Zafar Sikder identified his son at the morgue.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune from the DMC morgue on the phone, the victim's father said: “Around 3am a DB team in plain cloths came to my house and picked up my son. While being taken away, my son said someone has framed him.”
Sohel Mahmud, an assistant professor of DMC's forensic medicine department, said, “Two bullets pierced into his chest. Besides this, there were some scratch marks in his two hands. He died from excessive bleeding.”
