At least four people have been killed in the last 12 days in separate incidents in different areas of Jhenaidah, but no arrests have been made so far, causing panic and insecurity among locals.
The murders are taking place at a time when the whole district administration, law enforcers and residents are busy fighting coronavirus in the district, locals say.
The followers of influential people are taking the opportunity in this lockdown to do all kind of illicit works and are taking revenge by killing innocent residents, while law enforcers fail to take adequate legal actions, the locals alleged.
On May 11, Ovi and Laltu Mandal, two final year students of Jhenaidah Polytechnic Institute were killed in a clash spurring from a dispute over establishing supremacy in the area. Although police detained some youths to question over the matter, no arrests were made so far and the progress on the investigation is unknown.
On May 3, a man named Jawad Ali was beaten to death over a trivial cause that led to a dispute with his neighbours. “We filed a case over the murder of my husband but no arrests have been made since,” said Chaina Begum, the deceased’s wife.
On April 29, a university student named Arafat was beaten to death by his rivals when a clash spurred from establishing ownership over a land.
When asked about the incidents, Shailkupa’s Assistant Superintendent of Police Ariful Islam denied the locals' allegations that police had failed to handle these situations.
He said: “We are doing regular drives to arrest the fugitives and investigation on those respective events are ongoing.”
“Not only that, we are patrolling the streets at regular intervals to make sure the locality remains safe. We recovered loads of ammunition from different upazilas of the district in the last week and will continue to do so,” he added.
