SP Babul questioned to crosscheck identities of suspects, says Home Minister Kamal

With a smokescreen being drawn over the ‘questioning’ of SP Babul Aktar concerning his wife’s murder, the home minister has said the police officer had been summoned to crosscheck the identities of suspects.

There was no clear word from police even on Monday over Babul’s overnight ‘questioning’ on Friday.

Rumours of his arrest began to make the rounds when his relatives failed to contact him and police officers concerned after he was picked up at around midnight on Friday.

After returning home on Saturday afternoon, Babul told bdnews24.com he had been called to ‘discuss’ the case.

Police are reluctant to call it ‘questioning’ or ‘interrogation’, preferring to term it as ‘discussion’. They said it was ‘nothing but an obvious part of the investigation’.

On Saturday morning, Home Minister Kamal said the SP was being questioned in the presence of some suspects.

On Sunday, Chittagong police had produced two persons in court, saying one of them had shot Babul’s wife Mahmuda Aktar Mitu in the port city on June 5, while the other was keeping guard.

Police are looking for five to six others believed to have been involved in the murder.

The home minister has now said Babul was summoned to check the identities of the suspects.

“Police had Babul Aktar speak to the arrested suspects to know the motive behind the murder,” the minister said on Monday.

Asked why it took 15 hours overnight and why his mobile phone was switched off, he said, “That’s all I know. I’ll tell you if I get any more information.”

Police did not say when and where suspected shooter Motaleb Mia Wasim and the other arrested person Anwar Hossain had been arrested.

But the home minister’s comments make it clear that they had been arrested before Babul’s ‘questioning’ started on Friday midnight.

Wasim and Anwar had confessed to the killing in court, police said.

Two other suspects had been arrested, but police said their names would be dropped from the list of suspects in the case.

Minister Kamal said, “We are sure that one or two more suspects will be arrested.”

Police initially suspected Islamist militants to have been behind Mahmuda’s murder, as her husband Babul had led several successful raids against them during his tenure in the Detective Branch in Chittagong.

Besides, several murders, by suspected Islamist militants, had been carried out in similar fashion in recent months.

But, after Wasim and Anwar’s arrest, police are now saying the murder was carried out by ‘professional killers’.