Ajmol Ahmed Tapan, panel mayor of Khulna City Corporation and Mizanur Rahman Mizan, general secretary of Khulna city Awami League, who are in fear of their lives, were provided with police protection yesterday.
The two applied in writing to the Khulna Metropolitan Police commissioner on Thursday seeking police protection following the murder of KCC ward councillor and Jubo League leader Shahid Iqbal Bithar.
Bithar was shot dead early Monday in front of his residence at Musalmanpara in the city.
When contacted, Tapan said he needed police protection as he replaced Bithar as the new convener of the KCC-formed committee for conducting eviction drives against encroachers of 22 canals in the city.
“I have been feeling insecure since taking the charge,” said Tapan, also president of sadar thana AL.
City AL General Secretary Mizanur Rahman Mizan said he had been receiving threats from unidentified miscreants who demanded money over mobile phone since Monday.
He survived a bomb attack in front of party office on September 6 in 2006.
Meanwhile, preferring anonymity, three upazila parishad chairmen belonging to both AL and BNP said they received death threats from extremists for failing to meet their demand for money.
Dumuria upazila chairman Gazi Abdul Hadi, also acting general secretary of Khulna district AL, applied to the superintendent of police in Khulna seeking police protection.
KCC Mayor Talukder Abdul Khaleque said if police fail to arrest the mastermind and the killers of Bithar, the situation might go beyond control.
Any move to divert the murder to a different direction would be resisted strongly, the city mayor told a rally organised by Jubo League on the AL office compound as part of nine-day programme to protest Bithar's killing.
“We do not rule out intra-party disputes as one of the possible reasons for the murder,” he added.