Wahida Khanam

The Bangladesh Administrative Service Association on Saturday said that the attack on Ghoraghat UNO Wahida Khanam was not an isolated or burglary incident, it was premeditated.

BASA leaders told this at a press conference BIAM Auditorium in the capital on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the case was transferred to Detective Branch for investigation and a court allowed investigators to interrogate two suspects over the case.

BASA president Helal Uddin Ahmed, also a senior secretary at the Local Government Division, at the press conference said that it was not an incident of burglary as nothing was looted or went missing, rather it was a premeditated attack and many people might have involved with it.

BASA secretary general Shaikh Yusuf Harun said that as Wahida conducted some drives to evict illegal land occupiers, she might have become a target of the vested quarter.

Earlier, RAB said the incident was a mare burglary.

Asked whether the people suffer any trouble as in the past Kurigram district administration used the police and ansar members to torture a journalist who reported corruption against the officials, Shaikh Yusuf Harun said that there might be some miscreants in any service but it did not mean that all people in the service were alike.

Dinajpur Chief Judicial Magistrate Court of Shishir Kumar Basu on the day allowed investigators to question Santu Chanda and Nabirul Islam for seven days in police custody.

Earlier on the day, the case, filed by Wahida’s brother Sheikh Farid Uddin, was handed over to the Detective Branch and DB officer-in-charge Imam Abu Zafar was charged with the investigation.

The Rapid Action Battalion on Friday detained Asadul Haq, a member of Ghoraghat upazila Juba League who was later expelled from the organisation, and house painters Nabirul and Santu.

RAB unit-13 commanding officer Reza Ahmed Ferdous on Saturday said that Asadul was taken to Rangpur Medical College Hospital for his illness and later in the evening he was handed over to Ghoraghat Police Station.

Dinajpur police superintendent Anwar Hossain said that they were questioning a number of suspects.

He, however, refused to give detailed information about the investigation.

Physicians of the National Institute of Neurosciences and Hospital on Saturday afternoon said that the condition of Wahida would improve shortly.

The hospital’s neurosurgery professor Zahid Hossain said her condition was improving fast.

There were nine fractures on her face and head and she suffered a brain haemorrhage as she was attacked with something heavy.

Wahida’s father Omar Ali Sheikh, 70, who was undergoing treatment at Rangpur Medical College Hospital, was critical and his lower body became paralyzed, said RMCH director Faridul Islam.

Rangpur divisional commissioner also formed a three-member committee, led by additional divisional commissioner Zakir Hossain, for investigating the incident.

The police headquarters on Saturday sent a special team to assist the police in Dinajpur in the investigation.

Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal-Jasad president Hasanul Haq Inu and general secretary Shirin Akhter in a statement on Saturday condemned for identifying the attack as a part of burglary to divert the actual incident.

Meanwhile, the government on Friday asked the director general of Ansar and Village Defence Party to deploy adequate number of armed ansars at the offices and houses of UNOs to ensure their protection.

BASA at its press conference on Saturday also demanded that Battalion Ansar members should be deployed for the protection of the UNO instead of the embodied Ansar members.