Kerry phones PM; urges her to arrest Xulhaz killers

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US Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday night phoned Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and requested her to take necessary steps to bring the killers of Kalabagan murder to trial.

According to the Prime Minister’s Press Wing, John Kerry talked to Sheikh Hasina for 16 minutes from 9:04 pm to 9.20 pm and exchanged pleasantries.

Expressing his concern over the Kalabagan murder, Kerry then said, “Xulhaz was our colleague.”

The Prime Minister thanked the US Secretary of State for expressing his concern over the unexpected Kalabagan murder and said, “Our stance is very firm against terrorism. We’re following a zero tolerance policy in this regard. Our law enforcement agencies are working very hard to this end and they’ve got some clues. We hope we’ll be able to arrest the killers and thus put them behind the bars.”

Earlier on Monday night, Xulhaz Mannan, 35, a USAID staff and former protocol officer of the US Ambassador, and his friend Mahbub Tanoy, 25, were hacked to death in their flat at Kalabagan.

Reiterating that her government condemns any kind of killing, the Prime Minister said one of the two victims of Kalabagan killings was a close relative of a former foreign minister of Bangladesh.

She also said, “All the members of our family except me and my sister became victims of murder and today is the birthday of my younger brother Sheikh Jamal who was assassinated along with other family members on August 15, 1975.”

In this connection, Sheikh Hasina mentioned that two of the Bangabandhu killers still remain in the USA, and urged the US Secretary of State to take steps for sending them back to Bangladesh.

She said Bangladesh has mutual cooperation on counterterrorism with many countries of the world, including the USA, and under such cooperation, the FBI came to Bangladesh.

“I hope such cooperation on counterterrorism will continue in the coming days and information will be shared.”

In this connection, John Kerry said he would send US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia and Central Asian Affairs Nisa Desai Biswal to Bangladesh to further bolster the cooperation on counterterrorism.

Sheikh Hasina alleged that those who had killed and burned people to death in public in 2015 are patronising these killers and they are moving with a soft target strategy in their killings as they are targeting imams, priests and padres. “All of these are cool-headed killings,” she said.

She also strongly condemned the recent killings of eight members of a family in Ohio and requested John Kerry to arrest the killers of a Bangladeshi couple who were killed in San Jose of California.

Source: Ittefaq

1 COMMENT

  1. Mr Kerry, this mandate-less government has measurably and miserably failed to offer good governance in the country. Now it is leading the country to a failed state. An immediate, inclusive, free and fair election is the only way out. International community must get together to make that happen if they are really concerned about Bangladesh.

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