BNP leader Nasir Uddin Ahmed Pintu, who was convicted for involvement in the 2009 BDR mutiny, has died of cardiac arrest in Rajshahi. Rajshahi’s Rajparha Police OC Mehedi Hasan said that Pintu was taken to the Rajshahi Medical College and Hospitals (RMCH) from the jail on Sunday noon after he complained of chest pain. Doctors at RMCH declared him dead at 12.20pm. RMCH Cardiology chief Rais Uddin said that Pintu was brought to the hospital just after 12pm. “But he was already dead from a cardiac arrest.” The former BNP MP was shifted to the Rajshahi jail from Narayanganj on Apr 20, according to a senior prison official. Pintu, the Joint Organising Secretary of BNP’s Dhaka Division unit, served as the president of the party’s student affiliate during the late 1990s. In 2001, he was elected as the MP from Dhaka’s Lalbagh constituency. A trial court had found him guilty for his involvement in the 2009 BDR mutiny, which left 74 people, including 57 army officers killed. Police had arrested him in June same year and he had been in jail since then. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2013 for conspiring of murder and helping the mutineers flee from the BDR headquarters adjacent to his turf Lalbagh. The BNP leader had filled nominations to run for the mayor of Dhaka South City Corporation, but it was scrapped by the Election Commission. Pintu had often made news headlines during the BNP-Jamaat alliance government term in 2001-06 for extortion and terrorism. He was arrested in one such case while an MP and was sent to jail, but later secured bail. The BNP leader was again arrested during the military-backed caretaker regime in 2008 and had beaten up a deputy jailor inside the prison. During a court hearing in 2014, he went on to beat up a police officer in the courtroom. Pintu is survived by his wife and two sons. His elder son studies in Canada while the younger one lives in Dhaka.–bdnews24.com
