Tea vendor burnt in scuffle with police dies at hospital

A tea shop owner, who sustained burn injuries as a police informant hit his kerosene stove causing the fire, died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital on Thursday afternoon.
The victim, Babul Matubbar, 45, died around 1:30pm while undergoing treatment at the hospital’s burn unit, said the burn unit resident medical officer Partha Sankar Paul.
Babul was admitted to the burn unit with a critical condition as 95 per cent of his body was burned following the incident that took place at Gudaraghat under Shah Ali police station in the capital’s Mirpur area on Wednesday night for declining to pay him toll.
Babul’s daughter-in-law Rokhsana and local people, who brought him to the hospital, alleged that Delwar Hossain, a plainclothes constable who collected toll from the street shops, went to Babul and demanded the toll at about 9:30pm in presence of a uniformed cop.
As Babul denied to pay the toll and requested Delwar to take the money later saying that that his sales was not good on the day, Delwar became furious and hit the burning kerosene stove causing Babul to be doused with kerosene and to caught fire, they said.
Delwar immediately fled away and the locals and nearby shopkeepers put off the fire and rushed him to the hospital at about 10:45pm.
Shah Ali police station sub-inspector Shahidul Islam confirmed that Delwar was their source and he went into hiding.
‘We went to the spot but none could say how Babul caught fire…We are, however, looking for Delwar,’ he said.
Babul’s son Monir demanded justice to the murder of his father. ‘Police murdered my innocent father,’
Meanwhile, the chairman of National Human Rights Commission, Mizanur Rahman, went to Dhaka Medical College Hospital to see Babul. Reaching the hospital, he found Babul already lost his fight.
‘The audacity of police have crossed all the limits. This has to reach an end right now,’ an angry Mizanur told reporters.