Shahidul Islam Shahid :
The Awami League leadership has become highly worried after they came to know that party MP Amanur Rahman Khan and his three brothers are involved in the killing of Tangail district unit AL leader Faruque Ahmed, insiders said on Monday.
This was the latest of a number of killings of Awami League (AL) leaders by party MPs men or cannibalism by carried out by party Members of Parliament (MPs) and this trend is “dangerous and destructive” for the oldest political institution of the Republic, they warned.
These had become developed as a trend following the killing of Narshingdi Mayor and AL leader Lokman Hossain in December 2011, an AL Presidium member observed while talking to The New Nation yesterday evening. He, however, requested not to disclose his identity ‘at this stage’.
Lokman was allegedly killed by a group of professional killers under the leadership of Salah Uddin Ahmed Bacchu, the younger brother of local MP and the then Telecommunication Minister Rajiuddin Ahmed Raju, in connivance with the minister.
“Police investigators have recently found proofs of involvement of Amanur Rahman Khan MP from Tangail-3 (Ghtail) seat and his three brothers, including municipal Mayor Shahidur Rahman Khan, in the murder of Tangail district AL leader Faruqe Ahmed, who was a freedom fighter,” a central leader of the party said.
“Not only a front ranking freedom fighter, Faruque was also an Assistant Editor of ‘Ranangon (The Battlefield)’, a weekly vernacular newspaper that was being regularly published from ‘enemy-free area’ in Tangail-Mymensingh sector during the War of Independence in 1971,” he said.
The AL central leader recalled that he (Faruque) was one of those handful of freedom fighters (FFs), who had took part in the ‘battles of resistance’ under the leadership of Bangabir Quader Siddqui after the August 15 (1975) killing of Bangabnahdu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members.
Talking to this Correspondent at the 23 Babngabandu Avenue AL headquarters, another central leader said, “The police investigators got evidences that Faruque was killed because he was a candidate for the General Secretary post district unit of party against Mayor Shahidur Rahman. And there was every possibility of Faruque’s winning at the district AL Council Session.”
“So, Faruque was terminated from the world by his rival,” he said, disclosing that two arrested accused killers-Aminul Islam and Mohammad Ali-in their confessional statement said that the AL MP and his three brothers were involved in the murder,” he said. Aminul and Mohammad Ali were reported to executed the killing as per the ‘MP’s design’, he added.
The bullet-hit body of Faruque was recovered from a road near his residence at College Para of Tangail district town in the night on January 18, 2013, District AL President Alamgir Khan (Menu) told reporters on Saturday night.
Meanwhile, quoting Superintendent of Police (SP) Tangail Saleh Mohammad Tanvir on Saturday a popular vernacular daily said that they (police investigators) had become sure about Faruque’s killers from the confessional statement (under section 164 of the CrPC) of Aminul and Mohammad Ali.
Earlier, in Feni district, Fulgazi upazila Chairman Ekramul Haque (45) was shot and burnt alive in the broad daylight allegedly by armed henchmen of Feni MP Nizam Uddin Hazari, who managed to get released from Chittagong prison before the Parliament elections by submitting false ‘documents’ to the Court of Law and prison authorities. A Bench of the High Court Division of the Supreme Court is now scrutinizing Nizam release-scam.
A Narayangonj City Councilor Noor Hossain had allegedly paid Taka 70 million to the local Commander of the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) to kill seven persons, including his rival city Councilor Nazrul Islam along with a senior lawyer of the city.
Noor Hossain, who is now in prison in Kolkata, reportedly told a Court of Law of Barasat in West Bengal of India that he had designed the killings under the patronage of whom he said, “My leader and I entered into India at the directive of my leader”-meaning Narayonganj MP Shahmim Osman.
Terming him “god-father”, Nayarayonganj City Mayor Selina Hayat Ivy had formally blamed Shamim Osman for killing Taqui, a young student, and Councilor Nazrul Islam.
Besides, there were allegations of killing of promising AL organisers against party MP Sheikh Afeel Uddin of Jhikargachha-Sharsha constituency under Jessore district. As many as 50 AL organizers were killed by their own partymen in Sharsha-Jhikargachha area during the last one year. Situation is so bad that former AL State Minister for Power and Energy Prof Rafiqul Islam was forced to leave the area for over two years.
Fahmi Golondaz Babel MP, who is the son of late AL parliamentarian Altaf Golondaz, of Gafogaon under Myemsingh district has created a rein of terrors in the area. A number of leaders of the AL and its front organizations were either killed while hundreds others were tortured by Fahmi’s cadres in his constituency. “Fahmi Golondaz runs a torture cell at his own residence, where many AL activists and its front organizations leaders were tortured and many of them became permanently disabled,” a leader of the Mymensingh district AL complaint to The New Nation on Monday.
Similarly, Abdur Rahman Bodi MP of Cox’s Bazar created a hell for the people, including rising young leaders of the AL and its front organizations, in his constituency, a district AL leader regretted. A leading Sociologist of Dhaka University told this Correspondent yesterday that the AL MPs were killing their own party’s rising leaders for establishing sphere of influence in their areas and beyond since they did not need to fight the opposition BNP as the latter’s are absent from the street agitation.
