Staff Reporter :
The government has launched an investigation into the audio clips of the last mobile phone conversations between slain Teknaf ward councillor Ekramul Haque and his family members.
“His Ministry has received the audio clips,” Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters during the launching of an awareness campaign programme against illegal drugs at Stamford University in capital’s Siddeswari area on Sunday morning.
The university management and the Department of Narcotics Control have jointly organised the programme.
A magistrate is leading an investigation team and it has already began its work. If the magistrate finds any ill-motive behind the death of the municipality councillor, the responsible person or persons will be brought to justice, the Home Minister said.
The government does not welcome any killing, he said, adding that measures have been taken to capture those (criminals) who are out of control. About the four audio clips handed over to reporters by Ekram’s wife, the Home Minister said there was no official information about it.
Asked if the audio clips have raised questions about the ongoing anti-drug drives, he said that the drive would go on. “People from every sector of life have welcomed the drives as drugs mislead youths and destroy their intellect,” Asaduzzaman said.
Ekramul Haque, also a local Awami League leader, was killed in what RAB claimed was a “gunfight” between the elite force and the drug peddlers in Cox’s Bazar on May 26.
Refuting the claim and pointing to the audio clips as evidence, the deceased’s wife Ayesha Begum on May 31 alleged that he had been killed in cold blood, not in a gunfight as the anti-crime task force claimed.
She alleged that she also gave journalists four unverified audio clips of chilling conversations in support of her claim. In one of the clips, a female voice is heard continuously screaming over a mobile phone hearing gunshots during a phone call. Ayesha claimed that the female voice was hers and the gunshots were fired at her husband.
Terming it a planned killing, Ekram’s wife Ayesha Begum demanded judicial probe into the incident, and urged Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to ensure justice for “the killing of one of her dedicated supporters”.
