Charges pressed against BNP leader Quayum, 6 others in Tavella killing

Charges were pressed on Monday against Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader M Abdul Quayum and six others in the case filed for the killing of of Italian aid worker Cesare Tavella in capital’s Gulshan area in September 2015.
Detective investigators said that they submitted the charge sheet to the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court against the seven.
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner (media and public relations) Masudur Rahman confirmed the news.
The investigators are, however, yet to recover the weapon used in the killing.
They claimed that Abdul Quayum, also former ward councillor, plotted the killing. The home minister, Asaduzzaman Khan, made the same remarks after the killing.
On September 28, 2015, Italian-origin international aid worker Cesare Tavella, who was in charge of a project of the Netherlands-based ICCO being implemented in Rangpur, was shot dead by unknown assailants in the capital’s diplomatic enclave Gulshan while he was on his way home from a club.
The killing triggered local and international condemnation.
According to US-based militancy monitoring agency Site Intelligence Group, Islamic State claimed responsibility for the killing. The government, however, immediately rejected the claim.
The aid agency’s country chief Heleen Saaf van der Beek filed the murder case with the Gulshan police station without naming anyone.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia dismissed the scope of any involvement of foreign militants.
On October 26, 20015, he disclosed the arrest of four suspects.
All of the four – Tamzid Ahmed Rubel, Russell Chowdhury, Minhajul Abedin Russell and Shakhawat Hossain Sharif – had made statements before metropolitan magistrates.
Tamzid Ahmed Rubel told his family that he was not arrested on October 25, 2015 but was picked up by Detective Branch officials on October 12 and taken to Detective Branch headquarters on Minto Road, where he was detained for two weeks. Like him, three others made similar allegations.
On October 28, 2015, home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said that Quayum was one of the suspects who masterminded the murder.
On November 5, 2015, the investigators also claimed that Quayum’s brother MA Matin was arrested in Jessore as he tried to escape to India to evade arrest.
Matin’s counsel SM Shawkat Hossain Miah moved a petition seeking bail for Matin stating that the law enforcers picked up Matin 13 days back from in front of his Badda house on October 20.
Matin’s family lodged a missing complaint with Badda police station on October 27.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net