The police have arrested three people, including an alleged shooter, in connection with the murder of Azizur Rahman Musabbir, a leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s volunteer wing Jatiyatabadi Swechchhasebak Dal.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police officials said that the metropolitan police’s Detective Branch arrested the trio in separate operations in Manikganj and Gazipur districts early Saturday.
The metropolitan police revealed the single names of two of the arrested people, alleged shooter Jinat and suspected planner Billal, and said that the other arrestee was their suspected associate.
A senior DB official said that their operations were underway to arrest all those involved in the killing.
‘We are interrogating the arrested suspects and will disclose the matter after completing the process,’ the official added.
The metropolitan police’s DB chief, additional commissioner Md Shafiqul Islam, however, told New Age in the evening that he was not aware of the arrests as the team was yet to reach the DB office.
The police suspected ‘extortion’ behind the murder of Musabbir, a joint general secretary of the central committee of Swechchhasebak Dal.
The BNP leaders, however, suspected political opponents’ involvement in the murder.
On January 7, Musabbir and Abu Sufian, general secretary of Karwan Bazar Van Association, were shot at about 8:15pm in front of the Ahsanullah Institute of Technical and Vocational Education and Training Centre in the Tejturibazar area.
The police and eyewitnesses said that Musabbir and Sufian were walking towards the main road through the alley when two miscreants, who were waiting in ambush in a small dark lane in front of the AITVET Centre, opened fire on them before fleeing the scene.
Both Musabbir and Sufian then ran back into the alley and collapsed after going a short distance.
They were taken to BRB Hospital at Panthapath, where Musabbir was declared dead.
Sufian is undergoing treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Musabbir’s wife Suraiya Begum filed a case with Tejgaon police station on Thursday morning against four or five unidentified suspects.
