SP Akter quizzed lawfully: DMP chief

Superintendent of Police Babul Akter, whose wife was killed by assailants in Chittagong on June 5, was questioned in accordance with law, Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia said today.

SP Akter is the plaintiff of the murder case and it is a normal process that an investigation officer will interrogate a complainant, the DMP commissioner told journalists.

The SP was asked to come to the Detective Branch office for questioning but he wanted DB to send him a car to reach the office, the DMP chief said.

“We sent the vehicle as per his consent,” he said at a programme organised at Dholaipar High School field for distribution of Eid clothes among the poor.   

Akter was quizzed by a four-member team of Chittagong police at the DB office in the capital's Minto Road yesterday.

Investigators kept Akter in their custody for about 15 hours from early hours of yesterday and interrogated him as the five arrested suspects allegedly divulged his link with the killing, sources in Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) said.

After his release from the police custody around 4:30pm yesterday, Babul told The Daily Star over phone that investigators questioned him about the murder case, as he was the plaintiff of the case.

On the morning of June 5, three assailants killed Mahmuda Khanam Mitu near her Nizam Road house in the port city when she was taking her son to put him on a school bus.

A CMP official told The Daily Star they identified all three who directly took part in the murder from the CCTV footage and had already detained and interrogated them.

The murder was initially thought to be an act of militants who are suspected to have killed some 50 people over the past three years. Responsibility for some of the attacks was claimed by Islamic State and Ansar Al Islam, which claims to be the Bangladesh branch of al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS).

The government denies any IS presence in the country, and blames the BNP-Jamaat and homegrown militants linked with them for the killings meant to create unrest in the country.