Two suspects in remand over Kunio murder

Rangpur police produced two suspects, including a local BNP leader, before a court and got them on remand for questioning over the murder of Japanese national Kunio Hoshi.

Rangpur Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 6 Oct 2015, 08:46 AM
Updated : 6 Oct 2015, 09:42 AM

The two remanded to police custody for ten days are Rangpur metropolitan unit BNP activist Rashedun Nabi Khan Biplob and ‘Hira’, the brother in law of Kunio’s landlord Zakaria Bala.

Police had detained six people, including the two, after the murder of Kunio at Kaunia Upazila on Oct 3.

“Initial interrogations have revealed that both were involved in the killing. The remand was needed for further questioning,” Kaunia police OC Rezaul Karim told bdnews24.com.

Sixty-six-year-old Kunio came to Bangladesh after coming to know two expatriate Bangladeshi brothers in Japan.

He rented an apartment in their house in Rangpur town, where he lived alone and worked at a grass farm at Kaunia.

On the morning of Oct 3, while Kunio was heading to his farm, three masked assailants shot him and fled on a motorbike, said police and witnesses.

Later police detained six people, including Hira and local BNP leader Biplob.

Biplob’s brother, Habibun Nabi Khan Sohel is a former president of BNP student wing’s central committee and now heads the volunteers’ front of the party.

The others detained include Kunio’s landlord Zakaria Bala, local rickshaw puller Munnaf Ali, Murad Hossain, who lives near the spot of murder and Rangpur metropolitan unit BNP’s Organising Secretary Anisur Rahman.

Middle East based radical group, the Islamic State has reportedly claimed responsibilities for Kunio’s murder as well as for the Sep 28 killing of Italian aid worker Cesare Tavella in Dhaka.

But the government says they are yet find any evidence of IS involvement.