Homeopath hacked to death, youth dies in explosion in Kushtia

Unidentified assailants have hacked a homeopathy practitioner to death and injured his friend, a teacher of Islamic University in Kushtia.

Around the same time of the murder on Friday morning, a youth died in an explosion in the same Kushtia Sadar Upazila when a bomb, ‘abandoned’ in a field where some youths went to play cricket, went off.

Police said they preliminarily suspected there was no link between the two incidents.

They are not sure whether militants were involved in the murder of homeopath Mir Sanowar Rahman.
 

Quoting locals, Kushtia Model Police Station OC Shahabuddin Chowdhury said Sanowar and the university’s Bangla department Assistant Professor Md Saifuzzaman came under the attack near Shishir Parha field at Battoil around 10am.

They were on their way to Sanowar's free Friday dispensary on a motorcycle,

Saifuzzaman’s colleague Manzur Rahman told bdnews24.com over phone that the former was first admitted to Kushtia General Hospital with seven stab wounds in the upper part of the body and head.

He was transferred to Apollo Hospitals in Dhaka for better treatment later.

Manzur said Saifuzzaman was a long-time friend of Sanowar, who was fond of Baul ideology. They would often go to Baul song programmes, he added.

OC Shahabuddin said they were not yet certain who the murderers were and about their motivation.

About the blast at Kaburhat that left another youth injured, the police official said duty doctors at the Kushtia General Hospital proclaimed one of them dead after they were taken there.

Their identities could not be immediately known.

The bodies of both the homeopath and the youth were sent to the hospital morgue for post-mortem examination. 

Police on May 15 arrested a suspected member of Ansarullah Bangla Team in Kushtia on charge of killing LGBT rights activist Xulhaz Mannan and his theatre activist friend Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy in Dhaka in April.

Zakaria Sarder, a Baul festival organiser, was hacked to death in adjacent Chuadanga district in December last year.

In 2014, Rajshahi University Professor AKM Shafiul Islam, a fan of mystic poet Baul Fakir Lalon Shah, was hacked in an area near the university.

Rajshahi University saw another similar murder days before the killings of Mannan and Tonoy.

People close to slain Professor AFM Rezaul Karim Siddiquee said the cultural activist had a plan to establish a music school in Rajshahi.