killing
Declaring Nov. 3 as a national day of mourning is a matter of decision by govt’s high-ups, says Obaidul Quder
Awami League general secretary Obaidul Quader said on Thursday that declaring ‘Jail killing Day’ as a national day of mourning is a matter of a decision from the government’s high-ups.
The ruling party is commemorating the Jail Killing Day on Thursday (November 3) to pay tribute to four national leaders and close aides of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who were killed inside Dhaka Central Jail in the old part of the city on the day in 1975.
Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmad, M Mansur Ali and AHM Quamruzzaman were murdered on the day while in state custody.
Following the military coup on August 15 in 1975, when Bangbandhu along with most of his family members were killed, a series of politically motivated killings took place amid a tumultuous political scenario.
On Thursday, Quader paid tribute to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahmam at Bangabandhu Memorial Museum in the capital as part of the commemoration of the day.
Read more: Jail Killing Day to be observed Wednesday
About the demand from the assassinated leaders’ families to declare the day as a national mourning day, Quader said such a decision is a matter to handle from the government’s high-ups.
The ruling Bangladesh Awami League began the day by hoisting the national flag and party flag at half-mast at its central and district offices across the country at dawn.
Party leaders placed wreaths at the portrait of Bangabandhu at Bangabandhu Memorial Museum in the capital at 7:00am to mark the day.
Wreaths were also placed at the graves of Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmad, Mansur Ali at Banani graveyard around 7:30am while fateha, milad-mahfil and munajat were offered there.
Read more: Aug 15, jail killings prove conspiracy against independence, people: PM
Floral wreaths were also placed at the grave of AHM Qamruzzaman in Rajshahi where prayer sessions, offering fateha and milad mahfil were held, marking the day.
The ruling Awami League will hold a discussion at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) in the capital at 3:00pm when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will speak.
2015 crude bomb attack: 54 BNP activists acquitted of killing truck helper in Barishal
A Barishal Court on Sunday acquitted 54 activists of BNP and affiliated organisations from charges of killing a truck driver’s assistant in 2015 by throwing a crude bomb.
Judge TM Musa of the Barishal Tribunal for Suppression of Crime Endangering Public Safety passed the order.
Special prosecutor of the court Nurul Haque said the accused were acquitted as the witnesses didn’t give proper statements and there was not enough evidence against them.
All the accused were present at the court during the hearing, he said.
According to the case complaint, on January 18, 2015, some miscreants stopped a truck at Shahanur bus stand in Barishal and threw a crude bomb at it.
Read: Sitrang: Thousands marooned in Barishal city
The truck immediately caught fire, burning the truck driver’s sleeping assistant, a youth named Shohag, to death.
Police filed a case against 57 people over the incident for killing Sohag by use of explosive elements at the Ujirpur police station.
Nurul Islam, then Officer-in-Charge of the police station later submitted a charge sheet against 54 people in this case.
At least 60 killed in Chad protests
Chadian security forces opened fire on anti-government demonstrators in the country’s two largest cities Thursday killing at least 60 people, the government spokesman and a morgue official said.
Authorities imposed a curfew after the violence, which came amid demonstrations in the central African nation against interim leader Mahamat Idriss Deby’s two-year extension of power.
Chadian government spokesman Aziz Mahamat Saleh said 30 people were dead in the capital, N’Djamena. Organizers of the march, though, placed the toll higher, at 40.
Another 32 protesters were killed in Chad’s second-largest city, Moundou, according to an official in the city’s morgue. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said more than 60 people were wounded.
Other protests were held in the towns of Doba and Sarh.
Read: 15 killed, 50 injured in anti-UN protests in Congo’s east
These were the deadliest anti-government protests since Deby took over last year in the wake of his father’s assassination after more than three decades in power. Officials said the late President Idriss Deby Itno was killed by rebels while visiting Chadian troops on the battlefield in the country’s north in April 2021.
At the main reference hospital in N’Djamena, overwhelmed doctors tended to scores of people with gunshot wounds. Some of the wounded were taken to Liberty Hospital by army vehicles and bore signs of having been tortured, witnesses said.
Witnesses say demonstrators began to blow whistles at 3 a.m. all over the capital of N’Djamena. Police fired tear gas at the crowds but the demonstrators continued advancing and their numbers grew. It was then that security forces opened fire, leaving protesters struggling to gather the dead from the scene amid the tear gas.
Among those killed was a Chadian journalist, Narcisse Oredje, who worked for CEFOD radio and was struck by a bullet.
Four die in horrific road crash in Gazipur
Four people died when a cycle van was sandwiched between two buses on the busy Dhaka-Mymensingh highway in Gazipur on Saturday morning.
The horrific accident in the Telipara area of the city at 8am disrupted traffic movement on the high-speed corridor for over half an hour, before cops cleared the carriageway.
The deceased were identified as van puller Borhanuddin, 45, a resident of Mymensingh district, and Yunus Ali, a fish trader, both occupants of the ill-fated cycle van.
The other two deceased were a pedestrian, Sohrab Hossain, 32, who worked at a local garment factory, and Hazrat Ali, 34, the conductor of one of the buses.
"The accident occurred when the driver of a speeding bus of ‘Basumoti Paribahan’ hit the fish-loaded van from behind and then dragged it to a distance where another bus was parked," said officer-in-charge of Bashan Police Station, Malek Khasru.
The impact of the crash was such that the van got sandwiched between the two buses, killing its two occupants, as well as the pedestrian and the conductor of the stationary bus waiting for passengers, the OC said.
On information, police recovered the bodies and sent them to the local hospital morgue.
"Efforts are on to nab the errant bus driver who fled the spot after the accident," said the OC.
15-year-old boy killed five people in a shooting spree in Raleigh: Police
A 15-year-old boy killed five people and injured two more in a shooting rampage in Raleigh, police said, horrifying a community that is now mourning victims whose lives were cut short as they were going about their daily routines.
Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson said the teen was captured hours after the victims were gunned down Thursday evening. He was hospitalized and in critical condition following his arrest, but authorities have not said how he was injured. Patterson said Friday that police haven’t determined a motive for the attack.
The victims were different races and ranged in age from 16 to their late 50s, Patterson said. Family members and friends said some of the victims were gunned down while doing normal, everyday activities — an off-duty police officer was killed while on his way to work, one of the women who died was on her porch talking to a neighbor, another woman who died was out walking her dog and another was out exercising.
Gov. Roy Cooper called the shooting an “infuriating and tragic act of gun violence.” He added: “No neighborhood, no parent, no child, no grandparent, no one should feel this fear in their communities — no one.”
The gunfire broke out around 5 p.m. Thursday in a residential area northeast of downtown, Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said. Police said from there, the teenager fled to a nearby walking trail and continued shooting.
The teen, who was not immediately identified by police, eluded officers for hours — setting off a manhunt across a crime scene that stretched for 2 miles (3 kilometers) — before he was cornered in a home and arrested, Patterson said.
The Hedingham neighborhood is a residential area of single family and town homes. The Neuse River Greenway, a walking and biking trail, is behind some of the houses. The trail runs about 27 miles (43 kilometers) along the river and connects to the state’s Mountains-to-Sea Trail that’s popular with hikers. The stretch of trail behind the neighborhood is paved and lies down a grassy slope from the houses.
Police said Officer Gabriel Torres, 29, was among the five killed. He was off-duty and heading to work when the shooting began. The other victims were Nicole Connors, 52; Mary Marshall, 34; Susan Karnatz, 49; and James Roger Thompson, 16. Connors’ husband told The Associated Press she was on the porch talking to a neighbor when she was killed. Marshall’s sister told NBC News that she was walking her dog, Scruff.
Marcille Lynn Gardner, 59, was talking to Connors when she was shot. Gardner remained hospitalized in critical condition Friday. A second police officer, Casey Joseph Clark, 33, was also wounded and released from the hospital.
Karnatz’s husband, Tom Karnatz, said she was an avid runner who often ran on the greenway.
“She was a very loving wife and amazing mother to our three sons,” he said through tears when he answered his door Friday. “We’re absolutely heartbroken and miss her dearly.”
In the driveway, a silver minivan and a Toyota Camry had matching 26.2 stickers — symbolizing the miles of a marathon. The minivan’s license plate read simply: “RUNNR.”
Woodrow Glass, a 74-year-old retiree and neighbor of Connors, said he talked to her nearly every day as she walked her small dog.
“She was friendly with everybody in the neighborhood, spoke with everybody ... and was really respected here. And we’re going to miss her,” he said.
In a statement Friday, President Joe Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden are grieving with victims’ families, and his administration is working with Cooper to help local authorities with their investigation.
“Enough. We’ve grieved and prayed with too many families who have had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings,” he said.
Omer Rosas, a sophomore at Knightdale High School, said he was shocked to learn Friday that his classmate was arrested in the shooting.
“I did not expect it to be him,” Rosas told the AP. “He was very calm. He wasn’t like a mean person. He was open to be nice to everyone.”
Rosas said the teen is personable and athletic — a smaller guy who enjoys running and was considering joining the school’s track team.
Thompson, the 16-year-old victim, was a junior at the school.
Prosecutors will seek to charge the suspect as an adult, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said in an email. Authorities have not commented on what charges the teen could face.
The Raleigh shooting was the latest in a violent week nationwide. Five people were killed Sunday in a shooting at a home in Inman, South Carolina. On Wednesday, two police officers were fatally shot in Connecticut after apparently being drawn into an ambush by an emergency call about possible domestic violence. Police officers have been shot this week in Greenville, Mississippi; Decatur, Illinois; Philadelphia, Las Vegas and central Florida. Two of those officers, one in Greenville and one Las Vegas, were killed.
Thursday’s violence was the 25th mass killing in 2022 in which the victims were fatally shot, according to The Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings database. A mass killing is defined as when four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator.
The walking trail was quieter than usual Friday. Sara Cutter, 31, said she sensed “a lingering sadness over Raleigh” as she walked the greenway, about a mile from the shootings.
“We’re all hurting today, the entire city,” Cutter said. “I’ve seen some somber faces while I’ve been out walking today. But it’s also been good to see people out. The community — that’s what will get us through.”
7 to die for killing AL leader in Mymensingh
A Dhaka court has issued the death penalty to seven persons, including a union parishad chairman, for killing a local Awami League (AL) leader in Mymensingh’s Gauripur upazila in 2020.
The death penalties were awarded to Riyad Uzzaman Riyad, Chairman of Mailakanda union of Gauripur, Sakib Ahmed Reza, Joint General Secretary of Gauripur Municipality Chhatra Dal, Khairul Islam and Mozammel Haque, members of Mymensingh District (north) Swecchasebak Dal and Chhatra Dal activists Main Uddin, Shariful Islam and Ruhul Amin.
They have also been fined Tk 20,000 each.
Besides issuing death penalty, the court has also given life term to three others accused for their involvement in the crime.
The lifers are Masud Parvez aka Curzon, Shariat Ullah aka Sumon and Rasel Mia.
The court also fined the lifers Tk 20,000 each, non-realization of which will languish them six months more in jail.
Judge Monir Kamal of Dhaka Speedy Trial Tribunal-3 handed down the verdict on Monday.
Read: 'Death penalty deeply flawed, unfair'
On October 17, 2020, some unidentified assailants hacked Masudur Rahman Shuvro, General Secretary of Gauripur upazila Swecchasebak League, to death in the upazila’s Pan Mohal area at about 10:00pm.
Abidur Rahman, the deceased’s younger brother, filed a murder case with Gauripur Police Station following the incident. On April 27, 2021, Inspector of Detective Branch (DB) Shah Kamal Akanda submitted a charge sheet to the court accusing 19 people for the killing.
On January 26, 2022, the court framed charges against the accused and started the trial process. During the trial, the court collected testimonies from a total of 17 witnesses while nine people bore witness to the accused.
On October 6, 2022, the court set today for pronouncing the verdict after completion of arguments from the prosecution and the defendant.
Another Bangladeshi man shot to death by BSF along Satkhira border
The Indian Border Security Force (BSF) gunned down a Bangladeshi man near the Khaitala border in Satkhira Sadar early Sunday.
Although there has been no official acknowledgement from the Indian side, a Border Guard Bangladesh commander confirmed the matter.
The incident occurred around 4am in the Koijuri area on the Indian side of the border. The victim has been named as Hasanur Rahman, 25, of Kushkhali village.
Hasanur's father Haider Ali said, "My son crossed into India a few days ago to visit a relative because he did not have a passport. While he was returning home early Sunday in the same way around, alongside a few other companions, a BSF patrol from India's Koijuri Camp opened fire on them. Hasanur was critically injured in the shooting."
Later, Hasanur's companions managed to drag him to Bangladesh territory and admitted him to Satkhira Sadar Hospital around 6am. As his condition worsened, he was referred to Khulna Surgical Hospital where he was declared dead upon arrival at 7am, according to the father.
Read: BSF kills Bangladeshi cattle trader in Chuadanga, says BGB
Satkhira-33 BGB commander Lieutenant Colonel Mohammad Al Mahmud said, "When BSF was asked about Hasanur's death, they denied the firing. We have invited them for a flag meeting. Once we have the meeting, we will learn more about the death."
Although it was learnt that there has been no word back from BSF on when or where the meeting might take place.
At about the same time in a different part of the country, BSF shot and killed Muntaj Hossain alias Jahangir, 32, at the Boldiya border in Damurhuda upazila of Chuadanga.
The killing was confirmed by a BGB official, who said Muntaj was a cattle trader - hence in BSF's eyes, a cattle smuggler. His body still remains across the border on Indian territory.
The BSF circulated a statement to the media regarding the Chuadanga killing, trying to portray their personnel's discharge of two rounds from his Insas rifle as an self-defence.
It is the first time this year that two Bangladeshis have been killed by BSF in a single day. Ain o Salish Kendra data till September showed that the BSF had killed 18 Bangladeshis till the start of last month in 2022.
The declared aspiration of both countries to bring the contentious issue of border killings i.e. Bangladeshis getting killed by the Indian border force along the over 4096-km international border they share 'down to zero', remains a pipe dream.
Unspeakable: Local AL leader held for killing newborn he fathered in Sylhet
Police on Friday arrested a local Awami League (AL) leader for strangling to death a newborn he himself fathered with a widow in Mujibnagar village under Sylhet’s Jaintapur upazila.
The arrestee has been identified as Fakhrul Islam, member of No 1 Nijpat Union Parishad and Vice president of No 2 Ward unit of AL.
According to police, Fakhrul developed an illicit relationship with Sharufa Begum, a widow for ten years, after her husband’s death. Fakhrul was assisted by two people, namely Suhel Ahmad and Jamir Uddin, in this crime. Sharufa got pregnant recently and gave birth to a baby boy on Friday.
Read: Nusrat Murder: AL leader arrested from Dhaka
Upon hearing about the birth of the child, Fakhrul strangulated the newborn to death and buried it based on the counsel of Suhel and Jamir. The widow informed the locals about the matter, who then called up the police for taking action against the killers.
“We’ve recovered the body of the newborn and sent it to Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital for DNA test. Also, we’ve arrested Fakhrul and looking for the other two accused. The victim has filed a case under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act for infant killing,” said Golam Dastgir Ahmad, Officer In-charge (OC) of Jaintapur Model Police Station.
Trans woman stabbed to death on Paribagh foot overbridge
A 24-year-old transgender woman was stabbed to death by two people in the city’s Paribagh area early Friday.
The deceased was born as Sattar Hossain, a male, but had started identifying as a woman and took the name Nila.
Friend Sathi said they were hanging out on the Paribagh foot overbridge in Shahbag area just after midnight on Thursday, when two unidentified youths approached Nila and started stabbing her.
Later, Nila was rushed to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) where she succumbed to her injuries.
Read: Bogura AL politician stabbed to death
Meanwhile, police detained a 14-year-old boy for questioning, said Md Shahidullah, deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Ramna Division.
Police also recovered a sharp weapon from him, Shahidullah added.
An investigation is underway in this regard, he said.
Man gets life term for killing brother in Laxmipur
A Laxmipur court on Tuesday convicted a man and sentenced him to life term imprisonment for killing his elder brother in 2019.
The lifer is Abdul Mannan, son of Abul Kalam of Charparvatinagar village of Parvatinagar union of Sadar upazila. The convicted defendant was present in the court during the judgment.
The court also fined him Tk 10,000, in default, to suffer one year more rigorous imprisonment.
According to the prosecution, Hannan, the elder brother of the convict, had an altercation over a family feud on February 19, 2019.
Read: 5 get death sentence for raping teenage girl in Khulna
At one stage, Mannan hit Hannan with a sharp weapon, leaving him dead on the spot.
Later, a case was filed following a complaint lodged by their father the next day.
Police submitted a charge sheet on March 15, 2019, against the accused Mannan.
After examining the records and witnesses, Laxmipur District and Sessions Judge Mohammad Rahibul Islam handed down the judgment.