Jamaat activists arrested over murder of ‘Mazar’ attendant in Rangpur

Police have arrested two local Jamaat-e-Islami activists in Rangpur over the murder of an attendant of a shrine.

The victim’s relatives claim the arrested Jamaat leaders have been opposing holding programmes at the shrine premises.

Rahmat Ali was found bludgeoned to death on Tuesday night at Kawnia Upazila.

Kawnia Police Station OC AMB Jahidul Islam said Jamaat leader Morshed Ali, 36, and his nephew Shahidul Islam, 35, were nabbed on Wednesday morning.

Rahmat Ali’s son has accused three men in a murder case filed with local police, but OC Islam said police are not disclosing the names for the “sake of investigation”.

“The two arrested are members of Jamaat’s local unit. Morshed Ali’s father Mawlana Abdus Sattar, 70, a ‘Razakar’ (collaborator of Pakistani forces) is absconding,” the police officer added.

Locals claim victim Rahmat Ali did not have animosity with anyone.

Police say they are investigating his family’s claim about the Jamaat leaders’ threats to stop religious gatherings at the shrine premises.

Rahmat Ali’s nephew Ferdous Islam said the shrine was set up near their homes in the name of his grandfather Abdus Sattar.

“My uncle (Rahmat Ali) was an attendant of the shrine. A religious gathering is organised every year to commemorate my grandfather’s death anniversary on Nov 12,” he said.

“Razakar commander Mawlana Sattar and local Jamaat leaders have been saying the gatherings (popularly called ‘Urash’ or ‘Urs’) were an anti-Islamic practice and warned us to call them off.

“They held out the threat that we must not organise the gathering this year as well,” claimed Islam, who is a lawyer.

Kawnia Upazila freedom fighters’ council commander Mohammad Suruzzaman said Sattar was charged with genocide, rape, loot and arson during the Liberation War in seven cases in 1972.

But he returned to the locality after Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s assassination in 1975 and resumed political activities in the Jamaat.