A court today placed the prime accused in the murder case of a Special Branch (SB) sub-inspector in Savar on a five-day remand.

Senior Judicial Magistrate of Dhaka, Ayesha Siddika, passed the order.

The accused, Zahurul Islam, 30, was arrested yesterday in connection with the murder of SB Sub-Inspector Md Altaf Hossain.

Savar Model Police Station Officer-in-Charge Saiful Alam told The Daily Star that police produced Zahurul before a Dhaka court seeking a 10-day remand for interrogation, and the court granted a five-day remand.

Meanwhile, several teams of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) conducted raids in different areas of Munshiganj and Aminbazar and arrested eight more accused in the case last night.

They are Alauddin, Apon, Jihad, Imran, Nur Mohammad Rudra, Rakib Miah, Shabbir Ahmed, and Wasim, said Rab-10 Commanding Officer Additional DIG Mohammad Asaduzzaman at a press briefing at the Rab Media Centre in Dhaka's Karwan Bazar today.

“The SB officer [Altaf] was not targeted for being a policeman since he was in plainclothes at the time," he said.

Of the arrestees, Apon and Jihad have prior criminal records and are involved in drug peddling. According to Rab, Alauddin struck Altaf, Jihad stabbed him, and Apon hit him on the head with a metal pipe.

Around 8:00pm on Saturday, Altaf was attacked after he protested the assault of an elderly owner of an auto-rickshaw garage.

He took shelter inside his garment factory to save his life, but the attackers followed him there and assaulted him and his son Ariful, leaving both seriously injured. The attackers also vandalised the factory.

Altaf and his son were later taken to Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital in Dhaka, where doctors declared Altaf dead.

Following the incident, Altaf’s wife, Shiuli Parvin, filed a case with Savar Model Police Station, naming 15 people and accusing another 20 unnamed individuals.

Our Savar correspondent contributed to this report.