A still-grieving family's hope for justice

To see a father look at photographs of his son will most often be to detect a range of happy emotions: love, joy and pride. But in the home of the assistant general manager of Agrani Bank for Kushtia zone, Wahedul Islam, in the house in Kushtia's Thanapara, to see father look at photos of his son will bring tears to the eye. For the last two years photographs are all Islam has seen of Lipu, since his son was murdered.

"It was hard for me to lose my only son in that sort of a way," Islam says.

Touhidul Islam Lipu was a second-year computer engineering student at North South University when he was abducted. He had returned home to Kushtia on vacation just the day before the family's nightmare began.

On the evening of 31 August 2014 Lipu was called out of his home by his father's cousin Zuhaim Khondokar Shuvo and Raqibul Islam Bappi, Shuvo's friend, who have since confessed to the abduction and murder.

The duo took Lipu to Pabna's Ishwardi, 40 kilometres from Kushtia town, and confined him in a house. They contacted Lipu's father with a demand of Tk 10 lakhs in ransom, threatening to kill Lipu if the money was not paid.

"I wanted to pay them. I just wanted to bring my son back to my lap," Islam says, "but ultimately they killed him."

It is two years later and the trial, against not only these two but 16 others who remain at large, is now underway.

"We want justice," says Lipu's mother Samsunnahar Lili, a teacher of Kushtia Government Girls High School.

Lipu's only sister, Farzana Mim, now a genetic engineering student at Dhaka University, agrees. The family wants Lipu's killers either to hang or to spend the rest of their lives behind bars.

According to the charge sheet the initial plan was to release Lipu upon ransom payment but Shuvo was worried Lipu had recognised him. The kidnappers decided to kill Lipu to mitigate the risk that all would face trial should Shuvo's identity be compromised.

On 1 September 2014 they took Lipu to the bank of the Padma River, where he was strangled to death before the killers slashed his abdomen and dumped his body in the river.

On 13 September 2014 a Rapid Action Battalion team arrested Shuvo and Bappi, and the two confessed. But, released into the Padma's arms, Lipu's body was never recovered.

With the case subsequently handed to Kushtia's Detective Branch the charge sheet naming Shuvo and Bappi as masterminds was submitted before a magistrate on 1 August 2015. The court ordered confiscation of the properties of the two prime accused.

"We are looking for all the others involved in the killing," says Kushtia's additional superintendent of police Zoynal Abedin. It's small consolation for Lipu's family.

Lipu's Thanapara bedroom largely remains as it was left. The room could almost be that of any son except for the sombre mood that seems to have seeped into its walls, except for the more-than-usual number of photographs on display. But these are things that can happen to a room, when a loved one is taken too soon and in such a horrible way, when photographs are all that is left to be seen of a son.