Man drowns after being chased

After being chased allegedly by police and locals for ignoring a stop signal from a police check post, a man got drowned in the capital's Demra yesterday.
Thirty-five-year-old Azibor Khan, a CNG-run auto-rickshaw driver by profession, was riding home on a rickshaw with two other people.
Around 2:00pm, a police check post near the local poultry farms signalled the rickshaw to stop.
Fearing harassment on the eve of today's hartal, the passengers told the rickshaw puller to speed up, Azibor's friend Mohammad Ferdous, one of the persons on the rickshaw, told The Daily Star.
The locals also beat Azibor, he added.
On the run because of the chase, Azibor jumped into a pond, where he drowned. About half an hour later, police took him out of the pond and hurried him to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where he was declared dead.
Azibor's brother Azizul Khan, however, said he had heard police along with a mob had beaten Azibor and thrown him into the pond.
He demanded a thorough investigation into the incident and trial of those responsible for the death.
Officer-in-charge Moniruzzaman of Demra Police Station said it was the locals who had only chased them when they disregarded the stop signal at the check post.