Body of war crimes witness recovered in Khilgaon

Police today recovered the slit-throat body of Shumon Zahid, a witness of a war crimes case and son of martyred journalist Selina Parvin, in Khilgaon of Dhaka.

Shumon Zahid, 52, a resident of Uttar Shahjahanpur, was one of the witnesses in a war crimes case filed in connection to the killing of intellectuals in December 1971.

A team of Kamalapur Railway Police Station recovered the body from near the railway tracks in Shahjahanpur Bagicha area in Khilgaon around 10:00am, Yasin Faruk, officer-in-charge (OC) of Dhaka Railway Police Station, told The Daily Star.

They recovered the body based on the information from Shahjahanpur Police Station, the OC said.

Zahid used to work at Farmers Bank, Kazi Md Bakhtiar, the victim's brother-in-law, said.

People who threatened him with life earlier for being the witness in a war crimes case, might have killed him, Bakhtiar alleged.

Touhid Reza Noor, another witness of the case also said the same over Zahid's death.

On November 3, 2013, International Crimes Tribunal-2 handed down death penalty to Al-Badr leaders Chowdhury Mueen Uddin and Ashrafuzzaman Khan for carrying out “unheard of extermination committed in execution of designed murderous scheme”.

The court found them guilty on all 11 charges relating to the killing of 18 intellectuals -- nine teachers of Dhaka University, six journalists and three doctors -- on the cusp of the country's independence in 1971.

The duo, both aged 65, were tried in absentia, as the tribunal's efforts to bring them back to face trial had failed. Mueen is now in the UK and Ashraf in the US.

Namaz-e-Janaza of Zahid will be held tomorrow (Friday) after Zohr prayers at the Dhaka University central mosque. Then, he will be buried near her mother's grave at Azimpur graveyard in the capital, Mofidul Hoque, a trustee of Liberation War Museum, told The Daily Star.