What IGP Benazir said about councillor Akramul murder

Outgoing Inspector General of Police Benazir Ahmed today (September 29, 2022) said the killing of Teknaf municipality councillor Akramul Haque did not take place to his "personal capacity", rather by the on-duty field-level officers.

 "It's a legal matter. There is no scope to express my personal opinion until it is identified as unjust or immoral."

 Benazir said this replying to a query whether the killing makes him regret as he was the Rapid Action Battalion's director general when the killing happened involving Rab members in 2018.

He arranged the press conference today, a day before his retirement from the service.

"There is no personal dispute with the gentleman [Akramul] who was killed in the incident. Many of us try to identify that as a personal matter," he said.

"It is our responsibility to see if any of our colleagues have gone out of the mandate. Whether they overstepped their mandate or not. If there is an overstepping, legal action will be taken against them," he said claiming that the Rab officials were performing their official duty on that day.

The police chief further said that he has information that there have been multiple investigations into the incident.

"There has been a magisterial inquiry. I ordered an internal inquiry when I left [Rab to join as IGP]. It would not be fair to say that there was no investigation," he claimed.

On May 31 2018, at a press conference in Cox's Bazar, Akram's wife Ayesha Begum alleged her husband was killed in a planned way by Rab members and she was trying to talk to her husband on his mobile phone during his killing on May 26 night.

She gave reporters four audio clips of chilling conversations, raising allegations of cold-blooded murder of her husband.

Ayesha demanded judicial probe into the incident. The family members, however, alleged that they could not even file any case in this regard, seeking justice of the killing.

Rights activists raised their voices demanding justice of the killing after the audio clips spread on the social media.

After Akram's death, Rab in a press release said the victim was killed in a "gunfight" between the elite force and drug dealers in Teknaf around 1:00am on May 27 of 2018.