An Awami League leader was killed in Sirajganj. His family says it was over election

Locals are terrified after the murder of Abdul Quddus Sarkar and are unwilling to speak to the media

A week has passed since unknown assailants entered a store in Sirajganj and gunned down Awami League leader and former union council chairman Abdul Quddus. His family says he had received ‘death threats’ after the union council polls.

The police say the investigation is ongoing, and five teams are working on it.

Quddus’s eldest son, Ruhul Amin, filed a case against 20-25 unknown suspects two days after the killing. Police arrested three people in connection with the case.

Abdul Quddus, 60, was killed at Bhogalman Bazar in Tarash Upazila’s Deshigram Union on Feb 18. He was a former president of the union’s Awami League and a union council chairman.

Locals have been anxious since the murder, and many refuse to talk to the media. Law enforcers and plainclothes officers are in the area.

“My father had no enemies except the ones in the last union council election,” Ruhul Amin told the media. “After the election, my father received death threats. His killers said he was killed in the name of the ‘Sarbahara Party’. The group that conspired to engineer my father’s loss in the election are also involved in his murder.”

Ruhul did not specify the political rivals or who had sent the death threats.

On the day of the murder, a group of armed assailants fired blanks at Bhogalman Charmatha Bazar, causing a panic, police said. They then entered Quddus’s store and shot him from close range. He died on the spot.

On Feb 23, local Sirajganj-3 MP Abdul Aziz held a rally and a march in the area to demand the arrest of the killers.

During the rally, Aziz said Quddus had visited him the day before the murder, urging everyone to settle the cases that resulted from the hostility in the run-up to the union council election.

The MP also noted there was ‘Sarbahara Party’ activity in Deshigram and Ranirhat during the previous parliamentary election but it was suppressed with the help of the local administration. He said that the administration must look into whether they are growing active once again.

Aziz also called for a police station to be set up in the area to ensure public security.

Five police teams are working to solve the case, said Ariful Rahman Mandal, superintendent of Sirajganj police. RAB, PBI, and CID personnel have also been assigned to the case.

Four people were detained and interrogated at Tarash Police Station over the murder, said Shahidul Islam, chief of the station. Three of them were then taken to court, where they were shown arrested, and jailed.

However, police refused to give their names in the interest of the ongoing investigation.