A leader of the ruling Awami League was stabbed to death on Thursday evening inside a building accommodating Cooperative Bank in the capital’s Motijheel.
Khairul Alam Mollah, 46, organising secretary of Jatrabari unit Awami League and general secretary of Bus Owners Association at Sayedabad bus terminal, was killed when he was coming out of the bank after a meeting with its Chairman Mohiuddin Mohi, a Jubo League leader.
The Awami League leader is suspected to have been killed either centring feuds over establishing supremacy in the area or extortion at the bus terminal or party infighting.
According to witnesses, Khairul was accompanied by two other leaders of the ruling party – Jubo League leader Ali Akbar Khan Babul, also an organising secretary of Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Shramik Union, and Taiyab Ali, a vice-president of ward 75 unit of Jubo League – during the attack.
Family members and relatives of the victim said Taiyab had disappeared and his cellphone had been switched off since the incident.
Cooperative Bank Chairman Mohiuddin Mohi told journalists at Dhaka Medical College Hospital that a gang of seven to eight unidentified armed men had attacked Khairul around 7pm.
He said the killers could be identified from the footages of the CCTV camera installed there.
Jubo League leader Ali Akhbar Khan Babul said: “We three were coming out of the chairman’s office. Suddenly several criminals swooped on Khairul and started stabbing him indiscriminately between the first and ground floors.
“The criminals left the scene after confirming his death and fired several rounds of blank shots.”
Babul claimed that he had tried to resist the attackers, asking them who they were, and had been beaten.
Khairul was a resident of the capital’s south Jatrabari. He left behind his wife Shefali Begum, two daughters – Badhan and Bondhon, and son Mashiur Rahman.
Md Ashrafuzzaman, deputy commissioner of Motijheel division, told the Dhaka Tribune that they were trying to identify and arrest the killers and unearth the reasons behind the killing.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Jahangir Alam Matubbar, DC (East) of DB, said: “We have seized the CCTV camera installed at the bank.”
The DB official said they were not sure whether Jubo League ward 75 unit vice-president Taiyab Ali was involved in the killing.
Meanwhile, bus owners at the Sayedabad terminal announced to go on a strike at the terminal in protest against the killing of their leader.
They demanded immediate arrest of the killers and exemplary punishment to them.
