Four interrogated over murder of Bangladesh police officer’s wife

Police are yet to name or arrest the suspects over the murder of Superintendent of Police (SP) Babul Aktar’s wife Mahmuda Aktar Mitu in Chittagong but say they have questioned four people over the murder.

Chittagong Metropolitan Police Commissioner Iqbal Bahar told reporters on Monday afternoon that they had brought in the four to interrogate.

But he did not say who they were or from where and when they had been detained.

Bahar said these four were neither detained nor arrested. “But we’ll arrest them if we find their involvement.”

Later on, he told bdnews24.com that they were released later at night after questioning.

Police claimed to have found late on Sunday the motorcycle used during the killing in an abandoned state at the port city’s Badurtala.

Bahar said they had also located the real owner of the motorcycle. “But he had sold it to somebody else. We are trying to find the new owner.”

Mahmuda was stabbed multiple times before being shot in the head near her home in the city’s OR Nizam Road on Sunday morning.

Three men, riding a motorcycle, had attacked her while she was on her way to drop her 6-year-old son to a bus stop for school.

Mahmuda Aktar

The investigation started with police analysing CCTV camera footages from nearby buildings that caught the men fleeing the scene on the motorcycle.

SP Babul Aktar, as the additional deputy commissioner with the Detective Branch in Chittagong, had played a key role in nabbing top militants and raids in the past two years, busting their hideouts in the city.

Since he was involved in counter-terrorism operations, police suspect militants have hit back by killing his wife.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said Sunday’s killing was aimed to dent the confidence of the police officers.

“We are looking into the matter of security for their families,” he told the media on Monday.

The Detective Branch are investigating Mahmuda’s murder with the help of other police departments.

Commissioner Bahar said the investigation was looking at the link of militants with the murder. “But we are looking into other aspects as well.”

SP Babul Akter has started a case over his wife’s murder at Panchlaish Police Station accusing several unidentified men.

The police officer was promoted in April and transferred to Police Headquarters in Dhaka.

His wife, son and 4-year-old daughter stayed back in Chittagong while Babul reported for duty in the capital last Thursday.

Mahmuda was buried at a graveyard at the capital’s Meradia on Sunday night.

The pattern of her murder — assailants on a motorcycle armed with sharp weapons and guns — resembles the killings throughout Bangladesh in the last two years, for which police have blamed Islamist radicals.

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