Lawmaker's son admits opening fire

Bakhtiar Alam Rony, son of ruling party lawmaker Pinu Khan, has admitted opening fire on people at the capital's New Eskaton in the early hours of April 14.

A CNG-run auto-rickshaw driver and a rickshaw puller were killed in the firing, detectives say.

"Caught in the nagging traffic gridlock, I was feeling suffocated inside my SUV. At one point, I pushed down the window glass and fired four to five times from a licensed pistol," a DB officer yesterday quoted Bakhtiar as saying 

during remand.

Bakhtiar, however, claimed he was unaware about any death.

Detective Branch (DB) of police arrested him at his Dhanmondi house on May 31, about one and a half months after the incident. He was put on four-day remand on Tuesday, nine days after his arrest.

The detectives also held the SUV driver Imran Fakir the same day and seized the pistol, 21 rounds of bullets and two cellphones.

Bakhtiar also told the detectives during remand that he was drunk at the time of shooting.

He drank liquor at a bar at Bangla Motor in the evening of April 13 and joined a DJ party at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel that night, a DB official quoted Bakhtiar as saying.

He went to New Eskaton area around 1:30am in his a SUV to drop one of his friends but caught in severe traffic jam at Dilu Road entrance near the daily Janakantha office.

On June 1, Bakhtiar was produced before a Dhaka court with a 10-day remand prayer. The court however granted four days for his remand.

Asked why he was taken on remand so late, a police official said: "Because he had fallen sick."

The shooting left at least three people injured that night. Of them, rickshaw puller Abdul Hakim, 30, died 16 hours later at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Yakub Shikdar, a CNG-run auto-rickshaw driver of the Janakantha, too died there on April 23.

Speaking anonymously, a DB official said they had identified Bakhtiar and his driver by examining the CCTV footage collected from the Janakantha office.

Driver Imran had already made a confessional statement before a magistrate's court, he said.

Rickshaw puller Hakim's mother Monwara Begum, who had filed a case with Ramna police on April 15 accusing unnamed persons, meanwhile was unaware that the arrests.

Sitting inside her shanty at the capital's Modhubagh, Monwara, 55, said she had only God to rely on for justice.

As this correspondent told her that the suspected killer was an influential person and had been arrested, she said: "There is no justice for the poor. I will seek justice to Allah."

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 the Apollo Hospitals that night. His daughter died there on April 15,” Pinu said over the phone last night.

It was impossible for a father to get drunk at a time when his daughter was fighting for life, she claimed.