DIG grilled for hours over Narayanganj seven murders

The administrative committee investigating the seven murders at Narayanganj has questioned Deputy Inspector General SM Mahfuzul Haque for more than an hour.

He testified before them from 2:30pm to 4:00pm at the probe body head Shahjahan Ali Molla’s office at the Secretariat on Sunday.

“I told the committee everything I know about the murders. I answered all their queries,” Haque told reporters while leaving.

He also shared his perspectives of the high-profile killings from April.

DIG Haque (Dhaka Range) was asked about who could be involved and whether the law enforcers fell short in reacting to the situation, said Molla.

The dead bodies of Narayanganj City Corporation Councillor Nazrul Islam, senior lawyer Chandan Kumar Sarkar and five others were found floating on the Sitalakkhya River at Narayanganj’s Bandar Upazila a few days after they were abducted from the city’s court area on Apr 27.

The seven-strong inquiry panel headed by Molla, an additional secretary at the public administration, was due to submit a report to court by Sept 9.

But Molla said they would submit another progress report to court that day since “it will not be possible” to prepare the final report by then.

“We’ve made significant progress in the investigation. We have spoken to almost 400 people and gathered many documents,” he said.

He said they were trying to do ‘accurately probe’ the murders while describing the case as highly ‘complicated’.

The committee was formed by the government on May 7 after a High Court order. Its task is to investigate whether any law enforcement or administrative personnel were involved in any manner with these murders.

Immediately after the abduction a case was filed with the Awami League leader and Ward-4 councillor Nur Hossain as the prime suspect, Nazrul's father-in-law Shahidul Islam alleged that Hossain had paid members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), the elite crime-fighting force, to commit the murders.

West Bengal police on June 14 arrested Hossain with two of his associates from a Kolkata apartment.

After the allegations against RAB surfaced, three former RAB officers were discharged from the armed forces and later arrested.

The officers are former RAB-11 commander ex-Lt Col Tarek Sayeed Mohammad, ex-Major Arif Hossain and ex-Navy Lt Commaner MM Rana. Tarek Sayeed is the son-in-law of Disaster Management Minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya.

All three officers made confessional statements in court after several days of interrogation.

Six more RAB-11 personnel have given confessional statements as eyewitnesses to the abduction and killings.