The death of the JMB convict in an ‘encounter’ is meant to suppress the truth behind the snatching of three convicts from police, claims the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
The government had completely failed to provide adequate security to the convicts, BNP acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir alleged Monday.
File Photo
JMB radical Rakibul Hasan alias Hafez Mahmud was killed in an ‘encounter’ in the early hours of Monday, according to the police.
He was one of three convicted militants of the Jam’a tul Mujahideen Bangladesh snatched in a daring daylight attack on a prison van that was carrying them to a court in Mymensingh from Kashimpur prison in Gazipur.
Fakhrul termed the killing ‘mysterious’.
“If the convict had been questioned, a lot of information could have been gathered from him. Instead, the entire episode has been hushed up by killing him in crossfire,” he told a news briefing.
Masked gunmen fired at and bombed a prison van in Mymensingh’s Trishal Upazila on Sunday, and snatched three convicts belonging to the banned outfit responsible for serial bombings in 2005.
A police constable died and two others were injured in the attack.
Hours after the ambush, Rakib was arrested in Tangail and died in an ‘encounter’ with police later.
The senior BNP leader said, “They had been tried and sentenced. Yesterday’s (Sunday) incident showed the security under which they were being transported was not adequate.
“This is a total failure of the government.”
He said ‘people’ want to know whether there was any mystery behind the ‘crossfire’.
In another dig at the government, Fakhrul said the Anti-Corruption Commission’s summoning of ex-ministers was an ‘eyewash’.
“This is nothing but a show to divert people’s attention from those ministers who amassed huge assets while in office.”
Source: Bd news24