Mysterious killings
Four bodies, including two of Jubo League and Chhatra Dal men, were recovered from the Meghna river and ponds in Noakhali, while two bodies of BCL men were found inside a septic tank in Chittagong yesterday.
Another body spotted by coast guards in the Meghna around 11:00am was yet to be recovered, said police.
Two of the victims, aged between 25 and 40, could not be identified. Their bodies were found floating in the river near Hatia of Noakhali in the afternoon.
Both the bodies bore injury marks, said Abdur Rouf, sub-inspector at Hatia Police Station.
Fazle Rabbi, officer-in-charge of the police station, said, “The bodies were almost decomposed. We suspect those were dumped in the river around five days ago.”
Meanwhile, locals in Sukhchar and Charking of Hatia claimed they had seen at least 15 bodies floating in the Meghna since March 14.
In fear of police harassment, the locals prevented the bodies from being washed ashore by pushing those back to the river with bamboo sticks, they said.
The Daily Star could not verify their claims.
Our Noakhali correspondent reports: Locals found bullet-riddled bodies of a Jubo League activist and a Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal man in a pond and a nearby ditch in Chatkhil upazila early yesterday.
Locals said the two -- Mohammad Akash, 20, a ward-level JCD leader, and Mohammad Al Amin, 25, a Jubo League activist -- were friends.
Amin bore bullet wounds in the chest while Akash was shot in the throat, said Ibrahim Khalil, officer-in-charge of Chatkhil Police Station.
Police said the two were involved in criminal activities, and they might have been killed over political disputes.
Amin was an accused in two arms cases, said the OC.
In Chittagong, police recovered the bodies of two BCL men -- Kamrul Hasan, 18, son of Abdul Hakim of Brahmanbaria, and Md Forkan Uddin, 18, son of Abdus Sukkur of Patiya -- from a septic tank in Sholoshahar area around 11:00am.
Kamrul was a student of Omar Gani MES College, while Forkan was a garment factory worker in Chittagong Export Processing Zone. They lived in Tulatoli Railgate area.
Police said the bodies were found with their hands tied with ropes, mouths gagged and tendons of legs cut.
They suspect the two were murdered sometime between Sunday night and early yesterday.
Forkan's mother Khurshida Begum first came to know about the incident around 8:00am when she called her son over the mobile phone. An unknown person, not Forkan, picked up the phone.
“As I asked him [the unknown person] to hand over the phone to Forkan, he told me that my son was murdered and his body was dumped in a septic tank near Sholoshahar Gate No 2,” she told The Daily Star.
Khurshida reached the spot around 8:30am, and found the bodies of her son and another inside the tank.
On information, police went there and recovered the bodies.
The motive behind the double murder was yet to be known.
“We are investigating whether the murders were committed over establishing supremacy in the area or business-related disputes,” said Harun-ur-Rashid Hazari, deputy commissioner of Chittagong Metropolitan Police (North).
The bodies were sent to Chittagong Medical College morgue for autopsy.
Protesting the killing, around 50 to 60 agitating BCL activists of MES College vandalised at least 10 vehicles at Sholoshahar Gate 2 intersection, and barricaded roads in the area for an hour from 12:15pm.
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