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Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has ordered the state minister for home not to spare anyone involved in Narayanganj mayhem.
Published : 12 May 2014, 12:36 AM
Authorities have already removed and sacked three officials of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) for their alleged link to the abduction of murders of seven people.
One of them is the son-in-law of a senior Awami League leader and Cabinet member.
The High Court has also ordered the Inspector General of Police to take immediate steps to arrest the former RAB officers.
“I have been instructed to do whatever is legal,” State Minister for Home Affairs Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told bdnews24.com on Sunday night after meeting the prime minister.
He added that Hasina, who oversees the home ministry herself, told him not to be lenient with anyone.
Kamal told bdnews24.com that the army chief General Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan also met the prime minister in the evening.
Asked whether he received the HC order to arrest the former RAB officers, he said, “It didn’t reach until 5pm.
“But I have heard it is on the way. By now, around 10:15pm it might have reached.
“We (the home ministry) are ready. Whatever the directives are there will be executed.”
The minister had told reporters Sunday afternoon that they will act in line with the High Court’s order.
The bench of justices Mirza Hussain Haider and Muhammad Khurshid Alam Sarkar issued the order while hearing a petition for a judicial commission to investigate the crime.
The officers are former Lt Col Tarek Sayeed Mohammad, Major Arif Hossain of the army and naval officer Lt Commander MM Rana.
Of them, Mohammad, who was the commanding officer of RAB-11, is the son-in-law of Disaster Management and Relief Minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya.
The trio were removed from RAB and sent back to their forces two days after seven including Narayanganj City Councillor Nazrul Hossain and senior lawyer Chandan Kumar Sarkar were abducted. They have been already sent to forced retirement.
The High Court, in a suo-moto rule issued two days after the allegations against former RAB officers had surfaced, ordered institution of an administrative enquiry committee.
The committee was formed two days after the rule as the receipt of the order was delayed.
The committee has already spoken to the families of the victims. It will hold a public hearing on the matter on Monday and Thursday.
Relatives of the slain city councillor blamed RAB officers and demanded their arrest when the bodies floated over two days - on April 30 and May 1 - on the Shitalakhyya River in Narayanganj.
Dr Bijay Kumar Pal, son-in-law of the murdered lawyer Chandan Sarkar, Narayanganj Lawyers Forum Chairman Shakawat Hossain and Mahbubur Rahman, executive president of local organisation ‘Amra Narayanganjbashi’ filed the plea on Sunday morning.
The petition also sought court directive to arrest the trio.
