Key suspect arrested over Special Branch officer’s killing

Police have arrested what they describe as the key suspect in the killing of a Special Branch sub-inspector who intervened when an elderly man was attacked in Savar’s Aminbazar.

The suspect is Zahirul Islam, a 30-year-old car driver. Shiuli Begum, the wife of the victim, SI Altab Hossain, 57, filed a case at Savar Model Police Station naming 15 people, including Zahirul, along with 20 unidentified accused.

Police station officer-in-charge Md Saiful Alam said, “Zahirul is basically the mastermind behind the incident. He has disclosed the names of everyone involved in the killing and the attack.” Police are conducting drives to arrest the other suspects.

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Zahirul is basically the mastermind behind the incident. He has disclosed the names of everyone involved in the killing and the attack.

Hossain worked at the Special Branch’s Malibagh office in Dhaka and lived with his family in the Medina City area of Barodeshi. His two sons ran a small garment factory there. At about 8 p.m. on Saturday, he saw several people who had arrived by car assaulting Abul Kalam Azad, an elderly man who owned an auto-rickshaw garage beside the factory.

When Hossain protested and identified himself as a police officer, the attackers turned on him. He ran to his son’s factory, but the group followed him, joined by about 20 to 25 others. They beat Hossain and his 16-year-old son Ariful Islam with locally made weapons and vandalised the factory. Doctors at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital declared Hossain dead after the injured men were taken there.

Azad said the confrontation began over an auto-rickshaw parked in front of his garage. Hossain intervened after the attackers began beating him, Azad said.

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The attackers got into an altercation with me over an auto-rickshaw parked in front of my garage and started beating me.