MP Liton Murder: Rab detains 'two key suspects'

Rab yesterday detained two men, one of whom according to the force is the “prime suspect” in the killing case of Gaibandha Awami League lawmaker Manzurul Islam Liton.

Tipped-off, a team of the Rapid Action Battalion picked them up from the roadside in the capital's Badda on Wednesday night, Lt Col Tuhin Mohammad Masud, commanding officer of Rab-1, told The Daily Star.

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The alleged prime suspect, Ashraful Islam is the son of Sundarganj upazila unit Jamaat ameer Yunus Ali. The other detainee is his cousin Jahirul Islam.

They will be handed over to Gaibandha police who are investigating the murder case.

The detainees did not admit to Rab to their involvement in the murder. To extract information from them, the law-enforcement agency will interrogate them on remand, if granted, the Rab official said. 

Ashraful is an accused in a police murder case in Sundarganj, filed in 2014, he said.

Family members of the detainees, however, told our Gaibandha correspondent yesterday that some men in plainclothes picked up Ashraful, a BBA student of Daffodil International University, his elder brother Sabbir Ahmed, an employee of a private firm in the capital, and their cousin Jahirul from their Uttar Badda residence on January 4.

“We came to know about it from the house owner, Khoaz Sikder the next day. We could not get any clue about their whereabouts,” said Marjan Akter Rumy, wife of Sabbir. 

Marjan, who went to his father-in-law's house at Sunderganj upazila on December 27 last year, came back to Dhaka on Wednesday and filed a general diary with Badda Police Station.

Yesterday she came to know that two of them are held by Rab. Since his husband is still missing, she is worried, Marjan said, adding that they had no involvement in the MP murder.  

Earlier, Sundarganj police arrested eight people -- seven Jamaat men and a former upazila vice-chairman – on suspicion of their involvement in the murder. They are in police custody now.

Police also detained 27 people and showed 21 of them arrested under section-54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Armed assailants shot Liton inside his Masterpara home on December 31. He died at Rangpur Medical College Hospital that evening.

Meanwhile, several thousand people in Sundarganj formed a human chain yesterday, demanding immediate arrest and exemplary punishment of Liton's killers.