Dispute over preferred stockbroker reason

Discontent growing in the past nine months over not shifting shares he helped purchase to a stockbroker of his liking might have prompted Zahirul Islam Zahir to carry out the brutal hammer attack on BRTA official Sitangshu Shekhar Biswas and his family.

“There might be other reasons, which could be instrumental in the build up of a distance between the two,” said one of Sitangshu's close colleagues at Bangladesh Road Transport Authority's (BRTA) Elenbari office in the capital.

“But sir (Sitangshu) never talked about other issues,” he told The Daily Star yesterday requesting anonymity.

The attack at Sitangshu's Mohammadpur residence on Monday night left his wife Krishna Kaberi Biswas, 35, dead while, with similar head injuries, him and his younger daughter Artri, 8, in Metropolitan Hospital's Intensive Care Unit.

Suffering injuries in her left hand, his elder daughter, Smruti, 15, has been left traumatised, said the hospital sources.

“She is not staying alone even for a moment. If someone attending her tries to go out of the cabin, she screams,” said one relative, Chandana.

Zahirul was a manager of a stockbroker a few years back when he helped the BRTA deputy director buy shares worth a “handsome amount of money”, said the colleague.

Switching to a stockbroker in Gulshan at the same position last June, Zahirul had been pushing Sitangshu to transfer the latter's shares to his new workplace. For this, he used to frequent Sitangshu's office and residence. “But Sitangshu was reluctant,” he added.

The Daily Star could not independently verify the employment timeline.

“We are suspecting the share dealing as the motive behind the murder but not overlooking other possible clues,” Dhaka Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner (Tejgaon) Biplob Kumar Sarkar told The Daily Star.

Multiple teams were working to arrest Zahirul, son of KM Shahidul Islam of Rajshahi, he added. Mohammadpur police said they raided Zahirul's office and Pallabi residence.