Another Bagerhat war crimes suspect arrested

War crimes accused Akram Hossain Khan has been arrested from Rajshahi, police say.

He is accused of killing 42 people, arson and loot at ‘Shankharikathi Bazar’ in Bagerhat’s Kachua Upazila during Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War.

The killings came to be known as ‘Shankharikathi massacre’.

Khan’s arrest comes nearly 10 days after the International Crimes Tribunal, set up to try war crimes during the Liberation War, issued a warrant against him on June 10.

The 60-year-old was picked up from the house of a businessman in the Rajshahi metropolitan area in the early hours of Friday, said detective police OC Nur Hossain Khandker.

He hails from Bagerhat’s Morelganj Upazila.

On June 11, police arrested another accused in the case, Abdul Latif Talukdar.

OC Hossain said Khan had been kept at the city’s Rajparha police station and would be sent to Dhaka in the afternoon.

Bagerhat’s local resident Nimai Chandra Das had filed a case against Khan and several others in 2009 after the government initiated the war crimes trial process.

Senior Superintendent of Police Md Helal Uddin, investigating the case, said altogether 63 cases had been filed over alleged war crimes in the district.

But only a few cases, including the Shankharikathi massacre, were taken into cognisance.

The case concerning the Shankharikathi massacre was sent to the tribunal on May 21 last year.

The tribunal took cognisance on June 10 and issued a warrant for Khan and Talukdar’s arrest.

So far 10 people, mostly current and former Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, have been convicted.

Bagerhat war crimes accused arrested