Tender-mongers assault NICVD director

Prof AKM Mohibullah, director of National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, looks dismayed after alleged ruling party tender manipulators vandalised his office at Sher-e-Bangla yesterday.Photo: STARStaff Correspondent

Ruling AL party cadres failing to manipulate tenders assaulted the director of National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) yesterday at his Sher-e-Bangla Nagar office in the city.

Following the incident, doctors and employees of NICVD staged a demonstration on NICVD compound protesting the attack and demanded trials of the assailants.

Local contractors and their cadres attacked Prof AKM Mohibullah as they failed to manipulate hospital tenders for last two and a half years, witnesses said.

Mohibullah told The Daily Star that a group of armed cadres led by goons Titu, Fazlu and Monir entered his office room on the third floor of administrative building around 10:20am. The attackers beat him up, damaged valuables in the room and left the scene after disconnecting his telephone.

In the guise of patients' attendants, the criminals entered the floor, said a security guard of the director's office.

A peon said the cadres also beat him up when he was trying to resist them from entering the director's room, and they were equipped with firearms and sharp weapons.

Seeking anonymity several staffs of NICVD said some ruling party men, who are also local contractors, are behind the attack as the director barred them from manipulating the hospital tenders.

However, the director claimed he had been trying to prevent a gang of criminals from doing illegal activities in his institute for the last two and a half years and that might have caused the attack.

Officer-in-Charge of Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station Mohammad Riad Hossain told The Daily Star that the director filed a case with the police station accusing Titu, Fazlu, Monir and unidentified eight to ten attackers.