Murder case filed against 9 RAB men
June 2, 2014 1:09 am·
A murder case was filed in Brahmanbaria on Sunday against 11 people nine of whom are Rapid Action Battalion 14 personnel, including the battalion’s Bhairab company commander
Major AZM Sakib Siddiki and subinspector Enamul Hoque.
The other accused in the case are Nazrul Islam and Abu Taher Mia.Md Mehedi Hasan, brother of the slain Shahnur Alam, filed the case with senior judicial magistrate’s court at Nabinagar in the afternoon. The court posted the hearing for June 4.
Trader Shahnur Alam, 43, of Bagdahar under Nabinagar, died in Comilla Medical College Hospital on May 6.
Shahnur’s brother Mehedi told New Age that RAB 14 had arrested Shahnur on April 29.‘Nine people in plain clothes came to our house and threatened us pulling out guns. After detaining Shahnur, the nine put on battalion uniforms and took him blindfolded to Nabinagar police station,’ Mehedi said.
Shahnur was then taken to the RAB 14 camp at Bhairab and tortured severely, Mehedi quoted Shahnur as saying later.
Battalion officials then handed him over to the Nabinagar police and ‘forced’ Abu Taher, an inhabitant of the area, to file a case of extortion against him, Mehedi added.
Mehedi said that the police had produced Shahnur in court, which sent him to jail. He was sent to Brahmanbaria General Hospital after his condition had deteriorated severely. He was later sent to Comilla Medical College Hospital on May 6 where he died that day.Shahnur’s family claimed that the torture that he faced had caused the death.‘Shahnur told me that the battalion had threatened to destroy his family,’ said Mehedi alleging that the battalion had killed ‘in exchange for money.’
‘They also beat me and kicked me with gumboots, poured hot water on my head and in my mouth and pushed two boiled eggs through my anus,’ Shahnur is reported to have told Mehedi in hospital the day before his death.
He said that it took about a month to file a case as they feared that something worse could happen to them if a case was filed against the battalion.Abu Taher, who filed the extortion case in which Shahnur was shown arrested, told New Age that he did not know Shahnur earlier.
‘I had never seen Shahnur and he had never spoken to me. It was Madan who demanded money from me,’ Taher said.
He said that police had called him on April 30 and told him that the battalion had detained the extortionists, who included Madan, on April 29 and handed them over to the police.‘The police said that I should go to the police station and file a case. I so did. That was the first time I saw Shahnur. I had never seen him before,’ Taher said.
Major Sakib could not be reached for comments despite several attempts.The battalion’s legal and media wing director ATM Habibur Rahman said that they had detained Shahnur on specific charges and handed him over to police in good health.
He brushed aside Shahnur being tortured in the battalion custody and said that Shahnul had fallen ill while being in jail and then died in hospital. ‘The battalion will not take the responsibility for this.’The battalion came to be criticised on allegations that some of its officials, including former RAB 11 commanding officer Tareque Sayeed Mohammad, were involved in the murder of seven people after their abduction in Narayanganj.
Another case later was filed on May 18 against five battalion personnel, including Tareque Sayeed, in connection with the abduction of two BNP leaders in Comilla.
Saiful Islam Hiru, a former lawmaker and president of the Laksam unit BNP, and Humayun Kabir Pervez, president of the Laksam municipal unit BNP, have been missing since November 27, 2013. It was alleged that the battalion had kidnapped them.
About 2,000 battalion personnel, most of them deputed from the military, were punished in 10 years.
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Murder case filed against 9 RAB men
