Gazipur district administration opens probe into writer Mushtaq’s death

Gazipur district authorities have formed a committee to investigate the death of writer Mushtaq Ahmed in Kashimpur High Security Prison.

The two-member committee will check whether there was negligence in treatment of Mushtaq, Gazipur Deputy Commissioner SM Tarikul Islam said on Friday.

The members of the committee are executive magistrates Md Wasiuzzaman Chowdhury and Umme Habiba Farzana.

They have been given two working days to submit a report.

Citing the prison authorities, Tarikul said Mushtaq fell in the toilet and unconscious on Thursday night. He was declared dead at Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmad Medical College Hospital.

Doctors and forensic experts will check in the viscera report whether the writer had any problem that caused his death.

The 53-year-old had no reported ailment.

The prison authorities have filed a case describing his death as “unnatural”.

Mushtaq, a crocodile farmer, actively wrote on different issues on Facebook.

The Rapid Action Battalion arrested him at his home in Dhaka’s Lalmatia and cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore at Kakrail on May 5 last year amid the coronavirus crisis.

The duo, along with nine others, were charged with propagating disinformation against the government on social media.

The judge rejected several bail petitions of Mushtaq and Kishore while activists demonstrated on several occasions demanding their release.

The police dropped the charges against eight of the accused and sought to press formal charges against Mushtaq, Kishore and Didarul Bhuiyan of Rashtrochinta, a group of political activists.