Our Correspondent :
Investigators have begun interrogating three policemen over their alleged involvement in the killing of retired army major Sinha Md Rashed Khan in Cox’s Bazar.
The four-strong probe panel led by Md Mizanur Rahman, Chattogram’s additional divisional commissioner (development) arrived at the Cox’s Bazar District Jail around 11 am on Monday.
The suspended officers — Inspector Liakat Ali, a former in-charge of Baharchhara investigation centre, former Teknaf Police OC Pradip Kumar Das and SI Dulal Raxit — are the key suspects in the case.
Lt Col Sazzad Hossain of the Bangladesh Army, Additional Deputy Inspector General (Chattogram Range) Mohammad Zakir Hossain and Cox’s Bazar District’s Additional Magistrate Md Shahjahan Ali are the other three members of the probe body.
Sinha was shot dead by the police in Teknaf on the night of July 31. Police, however, said they acted in self-defence when he brandished a pistol after obstructing a search of his vehicle at the checkpoint at Shamlapur along the Cox’s Bazar-Teknaf Marine Drive.
The police account was met with disbelief and there was doubt over whether Rashed had indeed pointed the gun at the policemen.
Liakat and Pradip are implicated in the case filed with Cox’s Bazar Magistrate’s Court by Sinha’s elder sister Sharmin Shahriar Ferdous on Aug 5. Pradip has been removed from his post at the Teknaf Police Station.
Seven of the nine policemen accused in the case subsequently surrendered to the court and were sent to jail after the judge rejected their bail petitions.
The probe committee heard the accounts of nine eyewitnesses to the incident at a public hearing on Sunday at Baharchara’s Shamlapur Rohingya camp.
“The government has given us until Aug 23 to submit a report. We are hopeful about completing the task by then,” Mizanur said on Sunday.
