2 ex-RAB officers on remand

A Narayanganj court has granted police five days to question two former RAB officers, arrested for suspected involvement with the multiple murders.

Senior Judicial Magistrate Chadni Rupom issued the order on Saturday.

Earlier, police produced the former RAB officers in the court and sought a 10-day remand for them, district police Special Branch Inspector Moinur Rahman said.

Photo: asif mahmud ove/ bdnews24.com

Former Lt Col Tarek Sayeed Mohammad, who was Commanding Officer of the Narayanganj-based RAB-11, and former Maj Arif Hossain of the army, were arrested from the Dhaka cantonment around 4am.

They were later taken to the Naryanganj police lines.

Tarek Sayeed Mohammad is the son-in-law of Disaster Management and Relief Minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya.

Seven men, including Narayanganj City’s Ward-2 Councillor Nazrul Islam, who was also the panel mayor, and senior lawyer Chandan Kumar Sarkar, were abducted on Apr 27.

Their dead bodies were fished out from the Sitalakhyya River between Apr 30 and May 1 in a macabre incident that outraged the nation.

Two days after the seven were abducted, three officers of RAB-11 in the district were removed from their positions and sent back to their parent forces - two to the army and the third to navy.

The three were sent into forced retirement after the seven dead bodies surfaced.

The action followed Nazrul’s father-in-law Shahidul Islam’s charges that some RAB officials were bribed to carry out the murders.

In the backdrop of these events, the High Court on May 11 issued an order asking the inspector general of police to arrest them.

But their arrests were delayed by five days due to apparent procedural complications between police and the army.

However, these two could be arrested only after the Armed Forces Division on Thursday cleared the police for going ahead.

The ex-navy officer has not yet been arrested.

How the arrest happened

Under the rules, the officers will get full facilities as army personnel for another year. This created complications in the arrest, as police needed a clearance from the defence ministry.

On Thursday night the ministry sent in a letter giving clearance.

Dhaka reporters gathered in front of Dhaka Cantonment’s Jahangir gate while Narayanganj reporters gathered at the court and the police lines.

Police were tight-lipped throughout.

At Saturday dawn, Narayanganj Superintendent of Police Khandker Mohid Uddin said the two men had been arrested and were brought to Narayanganj.

Police officials said a 30-member team from Narayanganj went to Dhaka with a microbus and five pickup trucks, led by Additional Superintendent of Police Subrata Halder, Assistant Superintendent of Police Jibon Kanti Sarker and investigation officer Mamunur Rashid.

A team member seeking anonymity said around12:30am they reached cantonment police station and contacted cantonment officials from there.

“After getting the green signal from there, we went in around 2am. There they handed the duo over to us.”

After completing some formalities at the cantonment station, the team left with the arrestees through the Zia Colony gate of the cantonment around 3:45am.

The motorcade entered Narayanganj Police Lines at 4:40am.