Exec magistrate, two BGB men face arrest

A Bagerhat court has issued arrest warrants against an executive magistrate and two Border Guard Bangladesh men in a case filed for killing an Awami League-backed Fakirhat upazila chairman candidate in 2014.

The three are the then assistant commissioner (land) in Bagerhat Ariful Islam, who is currently serving as executive magistrate of Chapainawabganj Collectorate; BGB Habilder Mamun Ali and Jawan Babul Hossain, court sources said.

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The court came up with the order on January 5 after taking cognisance of the murder charges against them.

According to court sources and case documents, the BGB men being instructed by Ariful kept pro-AL candidate Sardar Niyamat Hossain confined and beat him up with their rifle butts at Satsika Government Primary School over a trivial matter during the election on February 27, 2014.

The injured was left abandoned in a BGB pickup for around an hour. Following intervention of the deputy commissioner and the superintendent of police in Bagerhat, he was admitted to Fakirhat Upazila Health Complex.

Afterwards, he was shifted to a Khulna clinic on March 12 and, later, flown to the capital's Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University on March 15. He died there on March 18. The autopsy report says, Niyamat died due to physical assault.

Niyamat's counsel AK Azad Firoz Tipu said his client filed the case on March 5 with the court accusing Ariful and some unnamed BGB men of attacking and attempting to murder him.

A court then ordered for a judicial probe into the incident. The suit turned into a murder case on June 12, he said.