Hunt on for three others

Police are now after three persons who were with Bakhtiar Alam Rony, son of a ruling party lawmaker, when he shot dead an auto rickshaw driver and a rickshawpuller on April 14, investigators say.

Police are trying to find whether they had any link with the shooting, which took place at the capital's New Eskaton in the early hours that day, they added.   

Bakhtiar, son of Awami League lawmaker Pinu Khan, fired four to five rounds from his licensed pistol, leaving two innocent men dead, according to Sub-Inspector Dipak Kumar of Detective Branch (DB) of Police.

“We are trying to know whether he committed any other crime with the firearm,” said Dipak, also investigation officer of the murder case, filed with Ramna Police Station in this connection. 

Now in DB custody, Bakhtiar told investigators that he was drunk at the time of the incident as he had gone to a local bar in the evening and a DJ party at Sonargaon Hotel later that night.

After leaving Sonargaon around 1:30am, he was feeling suffocated inside his SUV. That's why, lowering the car window, he started shooting randomly, DB officials quoted him as saying.

Of the victims, Yakub Ali, a driver of Bangla daily Dainik Janakantha, was on duty while Abdul Hakim was returning home at nearby Modhubagh with his rickshaw.

“The two were just innocent victims. I want capital punishment for my father's killer,” Runa, daughter of Yakub, told The Daily Star.

Runa said she along with her mother Salma Begum went to the office of Detective Branch (DB) of police on Wednesday evening “to see her father's killer”.

They wanted to ask him why he had shot Yakub, but DB officials only allowed them to see him from a distance, she added.

Bakhtiar was arrested by DB men on May 31, about one and a half months after the incident. Produced before a court on Tuesday, he was taken on a four-day remand.

Police claimed Bakhtiar could not be remanded earlier as “he had fallen sick”.

Detectives also held the SUV driver Imran Fakir the same day and seized the pistol, 21 bullets and two mobile phones.

Hakim's mother Monwara Begum filed the murder case on April 15, accusing some unnamed persons.

Bakhtiar's mother Pinu Khan, also Mahila Awami League general secretary, said the allegation brought against her son was totally false.

"He was beside his ailing daughter at Apollo Hospitals that night. His daughter died there on April 15,” she said.