Police say they used CCTV footage from near the shooting scene to identify the suspect
Published : 29 Apr 2024, 12:58 PM
US police have arrested a man in connection with the daylight killings of two Bangladeshi expatriates in the city of Buffalo in New York.
He was arrested after CCTV footage from the scene was analysed, police said. However, his name and identity have yet to be made public.
The incident occurred on the 100 block of Zenner Street at the intersection of East Ferry Street and Bailey Avenue around 12:30pm on Saturday local time.
The dead were identified as 58-year-old Abu Saleh Mohammad Yusuf from Sylhet’s Kanaighat and 43-year-old Babul Mia from Cumilla.
Babul had previously lived in Maryland with his family but had recently bought a house in Buffalo. Yusuf, his wife and two daughters had moved permanently to Buffalo in December.
The two were conducting renovation work on the house when the shooting occurred. One of them was shot dead on the spot, while the other was critically injured and died on the way to the hospital.
A SWAT team was called to the scene after the shooting and police informed locals not to go outside, creating panic among the roughly 50,000 expatriates living in the city near the Canadian order.
Police gathered CCTV footage from a location near the house Babul and Yusuf were working on and used it to identify the suspect. They then announced a $7,500 reward for his capture.
Expatriate Bangladeshis held a demonstration outside the Buffalo Muslim Centre after Zuhr prayers on Sunday to protest the killing of the two men. The protest called for the immediate arrest of the perpetrators and for them to be given exemplary punishments.
Buffalo Mayor Byron William Brown and Police Commissioner Joseph A Gramaglia attended the demonstration and expressed their solidarity with the community.
A couple of hours after the demonstration, police arrested a suspect from a parked car in the city’s East Delavan and North Fork area.
Md Najmul Huda, Bangladesh’s consul general in New York, contacted the families of the victims and community leaders in Buffalo immediately after hearing of the incident and assured them he would stand by them.