FOREIGNER KILLINGS: Rangpur BNP leader remanded in custody for [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

FOREIGNER KILLINGS: Rangpur BNP leader remanded in custody for

Local October 07, 2015

A Rangpur Court on Tuesday remanded two people including a local Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader in police custody for interrogation in connection with the killing of Japanese national Hoshi Kunio, while a Japanese investigation team visited the spot where he was shot dead on Saturday.
Investigators, however, said that they could made no major progress in investigation into the same pattern killing of Italian international aid worker Cesare Tavella on September 28.
The Japanese team visited the body of Hoshi at the Rangpur Medical College mortuary at about 9:00am. The team, however, declined to comment.
New Age correspondent in Rangpur reported that police on Tuesday morning produced city BNP member Rashed-un-Nabi Khan Biplob, also brother of Dhaka city BNP member-secretary Habib-un-Nabi Khan Shohel, and local fish trader Humayun Kabir Hira before the court.
Kaunia police investigators sought the two to be remanded in custody claiming that they found information about their involvement in the killing of Hoshi, 65.
Senior judicial magistrate Abu Taleb remanded the two in custody for 10 days.
On Saturday, the police picked up rickshaw-puller Munnaf Hossain, who drove Hoshi to the spot, Murad Hossain, who was working at Hoshi’s farmhouse, his acquaintances Humayun Kabir Hira and his landlord Zakariya Bala for interrogation.
Police, however, had not produced them before any court saying that they could interrogate people keeping them in their custody until they arrested the people.
Kaunia police station inspector (investigation) Mamunur Rashid, also the investigation officer of the case said, said that they were detained in custody for interrogation.
Zakarai Bala was admitted to Rangpur Medical College Hospital on Sunday, said Kotwali police officer-in-charge Abdul Kader Zilani.
Rashed-un-Nabi Khan Biplob and Rangpur district Juba Dal secretary Anisur Rhaman Laku were also picked up by law enforcers on Saturday, the families alleged.
Rashed’s wife Shirin Akhter Deeba said that two plainclothes men identifying themselves as police personnel entered the house at Dakhin Guptapara in the city at about 3:30pm on Saturday and picked up Rashed.
Anisur’s wife Rezowana Islam Luna also said that a team of 6-7 people in plainclothes introducing themselves as Rapid Action Battalion men picked him up from their house at Nurpur in the city at about 2:30pm on Saturday.
Rezowana said that her husband was produced before a Jaipurhat court on Tuesday afternoon implicating him a case relating to a political violence.
The law enforcers produced the two BNP leaders before the courts on Tuesday after the prime minister, Shaikh Hasina, on Sunday claimed that the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami had a hand in the killings of the two foreigners.
Humaun Kabir Hira’s wife Sultana Khatun said that her husband used to work with the Japanese man as a ‘guide’ and he was also assisting Hoshi in his farming venture at Alutari.
The superintendent of Police in Rangpur, Abdur Razzak, also a member of the investigation team, said that the law enforcers had been working sincerely and taken all measures required.
Criminal Investigation Department forensic experts earlier had stated that the pattern indicated that ‘professional hands’ were behind the killing of Hoshi in Rangpur like in the killing of Italian international aid worker Cesare Tavella, who was shot dead in the capital’s diplomatic enclave at Gulshan on his way home on September 28.
The investigators from Rapid Action Battalion suspected that separate teams with ‘professional hands’ committed the ‘targeted’ killings.
The investigators in Tavella murder case were having series of meeting and analysing witnesses’ accounts.
‘We are working hard and hopeful about our progress in the investigation,’ said the case investigating officer, Detective Branch inspector Zeahad Hossain.