SP’s wife killing: DB seizes motorcycle ‘used’ by killers

The Detective Branch of Chittagong Metropolitan Police on Monday seized a parked motorcycle reportedly used in the killing of superintendent of police Babul Akhter’s wife Mahmuda Khanam Mitu in Chittagong city on Sunday and interrogated four youths but released them.
The investigators said that the four youths were released as the interrogations found them innocent.
The investigators were, however, puzzled by so many leads to the ‘well-planned’ and ‘targeted killing’ in which Mahmuda was stabbed and shot to death.
They said that they seized a parked motorbike ‘definitely used’ in the attack but the cell of the victim that went missing after the attack was yet to be recovered.
‘We are varying documents in connection with the vehicle,’ a detective official said.
They were also analyzing the data of the lost mobile phone, stored on the operator’s server to find leads.
Other agencies including Rapid Action Battalion, Criminal Investigation Department, Police Bureau of Investigation, and newly launched Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit were also working to identify the attackers of the family members of Babul Akhter, who recently joined Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit.
Three militancy suspects on a motorbike stabbed and shot dead Mahmuda near their rented house in GEC intersection in the port city on Sunday morning when Babul was in Dhaka to report the police headquarters.
Babul Akhter filed a case with Panchlaish police station for the murder on Monday. The case was transferred to the Detective Branch.
Babul Akhter is reportedly under threat mainly from the banned Islamist outfit Jama’at ul Mujahideen Bangladesh and has been moving with extra precaution since October 2015, when ‘JMB military wing chief’ Tawfikul Islam alias Md Javed, a textiles engineer, was killed during a raid on the Oxygen-Kuwaish Road in Chittagong after interrogation by Babul, who was then additional deputy commissioner of the Detective Branch.
Before his death in ‘bomb explosion’, Tawfikul Islam of Mymensingh reportedly claimed that he was a member of Islamic State in Bangladesh and revenge would be taken if he faced any harm, police sources said.
The killing of Mahmuda also bore the hallmark of previous attacks on secular bloggers, activists, intellectuals, spiritual leaders and religious minorities, but senior police officials said they never met a situation in which militants targeted their family.
According to witnesses, three people – one of whom was riding the motorbike was in a helmet, the person in the middle with a knife and the last person with a small firearm — on a motorcycle had killed Mahmuda in less than one minute at about 6:30am.
The road transport and bridges minister, Obaidul Quader, said on Sunday that not more than one would be allowed to ride pillion on a motorcycle.
Several hours after the killing, detectives spotted the motorcycle parked on road in Badurtalo Bara Garage area at about 2:00am on Monday and confirmed that it was used by the killers.
A hamlet found on the motorcycle was also seized and CID collected samples for DNA profiling.
The police were also examining CCTV footage collected from a nearby establishment to identify the attackers.
During his tenure in the Detective Branch, Babul managed the installation of 124 CCTV cameras but only 13 remained active, police sources said.
The miscreants left the spot and there was a tinted-glass black microbus behind the motorcycle while a man was seen following Babul’s wife and their son, according to the CCTV footage that went viral.
‘We are yet to be sure if the black microbus was there as backup,’ said CMP commissioner Iqbal Bahar.
He said they were also investigating whether the police had performed their duty in protecting Babul’s family.
Cops reportedly got Babul’s children to their school bus regularly, but on Sunday, his wife was accompanying their son after she reportedly received mobile-phone text from her son’s school stating that the boy had early assembly.
The police investigators said they were varying the statements.
Yasmin Haque, assistant teacher at Chittagong Cantonment Public College, responsible for texting parents, told New Age that no text message was sent to parents.
The death of widely known police official’s wife triggered condemnations while reactions were also seen on the social media denouncing the attack.
Slain Mahmuda was laid to rest at Meradia graveyard of Khilgaon in Dhaka on at about 11:30pm on Sunday though initially the family had planned to bury her at their village home at Sailkupa in Jhenaidah, said Babul’s younger brother Sahabul Haq.
More than three dozen attacks on minority Sufi, Shia and Ahmadiya Muslims, Hindus, Christians and foreigners took place in the past few months.
Islamist militancy suspects either were blamed or claimed responsibility for such killings and attacks.
US-based SITE Intelligence claimed that Islamic State group and ‘Bangladesh branch of Al-Qaeda’ had claimed responsibility for the killings and attacks.
The government, however, denied the presence of Islamic State and Al-Qaeda in the country and said that some home-grown militants were behind the crimes.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd,net