A RAB committee has denied that its top officials at the headquarters were involved in the Narayanganj Seven Murders, contradicting the testimony of three sacked RAB officials who said Additional Director General (ADG) Col Ziaul Ahsan ordered the killings.
The probe team, led by Additional Director General (administration) Aftab Uddin, which recently handed over its investigation report to the attorney general’s office, blamed the three sacked RAB 11 officials for the abductions and killings, saying they acted on their own.
The probe report will be submitted to the HC bench of Justice Md Rezaul Haque and Justice Gobinda Chandra Tagore today. The Dhaka Tribune has obtained a part of the probe copy recently.
According to the report, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) headquarters and intelligence wing tried to rescue the victims alive but failed because RAB 11 chief, Lt Col Tareq Sayeed Mohammad, concealed information from headquarters. But RAB headquarters succeeded in identifying the suspects very quickly, it reads.
“On April 28, around 1:30pm, RAB intelligence, discovered that Lt Col Tareq Sayeed Mohammad, Maj Arif Hossain and Lt Commander SM Masud Rana along with their sub-ordinate RAB members did it,” the report reads.
But in confessional statements before a Narayanganj court made after their arrest, the trio repeatedly said they committed the crime because it was difficult to disobey an order that came from such a high official.
On April 27, Narayanganj panel mayor Nazrul Islam and his four associates, and senior lawyer Chandan Sarker and his driver were abducted and killed allegedly by RAB 11 personnel. Their bodies were later found floating in the Shitalakhya River.
The three sacked RAB officials – Lt Col Tareq Sayeed Mohammad, Maj Arif Hossain and Lt Commander SM Masud Rana – are facing trials for the abductions and killings.
Nazrul’s father-in-law, Shahidul Islam, claims the RAB men received a bribe of Tk6cr from counsellor Nur Hossain for killing his son-in-law and the others.
The RAB report reads: “We found during the investigation that due to enmity over grabbing power and business problems Nur planned to abduct or kill Nazrul. Probably Nur was in search of people from the administration who would do this for him. After much effort, he finally got Maj Arif and then Col Tareq Sayeed and Masud Rana to be his accomplices.”
It continues: “Tareq knew about the abductors and the victims’ whereabouts. But he had concealed this information from the RAB Director General and other officers from headquarters when he was asked about them.”
The probe committee recorded the statements of 91 people, including RAB personnel and gave details of some personnel’s statements in the probe report.
But the statements of Arif and Rana, who claim they were following the orders of a top headquarters official, were not taken down in the report because “the two did not want to give any confessional statement” before the probe committee.
Arif and Rana have given detailed descriptions of how the abduction and murders were carried out, where the victims were taken, where they were killed, who were involved in the murders and who gave the orders.
They narrated how and from where the bricks, sacks and ropes were collected and how the dead bodies were tied up, which vehicles were used and how the bodies were dumped into the Shitalakhya River.
How the abductions and murders were committed
The RAB report reconstructed the incident from the abduction to the dumping of the bodies, quoting several RAB members’ statements.
Along with the three RAB officials, it names Sub-Inspector Purnendo Bala, AB Arif Hossain, nayek Azim (driver), nayek Delwar (driver), lance nayek Hira Mia, Belal Hossain, soiniks—Mohiuddin Munshi, Abdul Alim, Al-Amin, Asad, Tajul, sepoy Toiyob, constables—Shihab Uddin and Al-Amin, havilder Emdad, Nasir (driver), sergeant Enamul and ASI Bazlu as being involved in various phases of the crime.
Lt Col Rana took part in the abduction while the two other officials were present from the abduction to the dumping of the bodies.
Constable Md Shihab Uddin, who was present all through the incident told the committee that on the morning of April 27, a microbus commanded by Maj Arif and eleven RAB members started around 9:30am from RAB 11 CPSC barracks and reached the Signboard area of the Dhaka-Narayanganj link road.
Arif, leaving his team inside the microbus, got down and spoke to someone over the phone. He then returned and ordered the vehicle to go to the Narayanganj courthouse. After the car was parked, he asked sepoy Toiyob and havilder Emdad to go to the court. He showed them a photograph of Nazrul and asked him to follow them from the court premises.
After a while someone [Toiyob] called Arif’s cell phone and Arif rebuked him and asked them to come back. Toiyob said he had been caught by Nazrul’s men while keeping them under surveillance. He said when he was handed over to police, Emdad released him by revealing their RAB identities.
“Arif Sir rebuked him for divulging their identity to the police asked him to sit in the microbus,” the report quotes him as saying.
Rana, who had already deployed a separate team in front of the Narayanganj stadium along the Narayanganj link road, told them to be alert. Meanwhile, RAB lance nayek Belal informed Arif that Nazrul and the other men were staring from the court.
Immediately, Rana phoned his patrol team to set up a check post.
“Rana Sir, cited the registration numbers of the two cars and asked the patrol team to stop them on,” the report quotes him as saying. The microbus also started following the two private cars.
After the check post stopped the two private cars, the five victims were put in one microbus and two others got into another. Arif then hopped into a microbus and ordered the vehicles to go to Narshingdi quickly. The microbuses headed for Narshingdi but Rana did not go with them.
Around 3pm the vehicles reached Narshingdi and parked in an empty place some yards away from the RAB camp. Arif got down and spoke with the camp’s Maj Suraj. After a while he came back to the car and asked soinik Mohiuddin Munshi to bring some food. The RAB team took food inside of the microbuses.
After some times the microbuses again started moving and stopped at a place in Shibpur in Narayanganj. Maj Arif asked his team not to get down and talked over phone with someone for a long time. Around 8:30pm, Maj Arif with his team started for Kanchpur.
He stopped the cars after crossing Bhulta. There soinik Asad from Naraynganj camp came on a motorbike bearing a packet of injections.
“Sir [Arif] asked if any of us knew how to use an injection. As we said no, he rebuked us. With the help of Hira Mia and Purnendu Bala, he fatally injected the victims with poison.”
The microbuses then headed for Kanchpur and after nearly arriving there he asked someone over phone to clear the landing.
“At the landing we saw some 8/10 civilians,” the report quoted constable Shihab Uddin as saying.
Arif called a “Shahjahan Bhai” and after talking with Arif the man left the place. After a while a microbus from Narayanganj camp came with ropes and sacks.
They put all the bodies in sacks with bricks after tying them up. The sacks were prepared at the Narayanganj camp office earlier.
Around 1am they started in a trawler. After receiving a phone call, Arif asked his men to dump the bodies in the Shitalakhya River around 2:30am.
After dumping the bodies they returned to the Narayanganj Launch Terminal around 3:30am. They saw Tareq Sayeed at the launch terminal.
“The CO told us that we have nothing to fear. What had happened was done by order. But if you disclose today’s incidents, you will all be in trouble,” the report quoted CO Tareq as saying.
After that Tareq, together with some men, went back to the battalion and asked Arif to go to the RAB headquarters in Dhaka’s Uttara neighbourhood with the others.
RAB submitted the report to the Attorney General’s Office on November 23.
Deputy Attorney General ASM Nazmul Haque told the Dhaka Tribune: “The HC bench comprised of Md Rezaul Haque and Justice Gobinda Chandra Tagore fixed today for passing the order. We will submit the report before the court if it comes in the court list.”
