Three more persons, including a former MP, have been arrested in connection with the sensational Sahinuddin murder case, police said on Thursday.

Sleuths of the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and the Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) raided a number of places in the capital and Bhairab upazila of Kishorgonj district and nabbed the trio in the early hours of the day.

The accused have been identified as Md Sumon Bepari (33), Md Rocky Talukder (25), and MA Awal, former MP of Laxmipur-1 constituency. 

Sources at the RAB headquarters said that sleuths of the elite force conducted raids in Bhairab upazila late on Wednesday night, following a tip-off, and arrested the former MP in the early hours of Thursday. He is the prime accused in the case.

Similarly, the zonal team of DB (Mirpur) conducted raids at several places in the capital’s Pallabi and Rayerbagh areas and arrested Sumon and Rocky around the same time.

DMP’s Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC-Media) Iftakhairul Islam said that Sumon had plotted the murder and led the team of assailants. "His quick interrogation led to the immediate arrest of Rocky in the Kalapani area of Pallabi," he said.

Two other accused in the case -- Murad and Dipu -- were arrested earlier. While the Pallabi police nabbed Murad soon after the crime on May 16, Dipu was held a day after.

On May 16, the accused called up Sahinuddin on his mobile phone and asked him to come to Mirpur Section-12 on the pretext of resolving a land dispute.

When the victim reached the area around 4pm that day, the assailants attacked him before hacking him to death with sharp weapons in front of his seven-year-old son.

A murder case was filed at Pallabi Police Station on May 17 against several people, including MA Awal, Sumon and Rocky.