Incident not covered by any CCTV cameras

Erfan Salim. File photo

The incident of Erfan Salim and his men assaulting a navy officer in Dhanmondi on Sunday was not recorded by any CCTV cameras in the vicinity, but the police have amateur videos of the incident.

"We got two CCTV cameras installed in the area … the cameras do not cover the actual place of occurrence," Abdulla Hil Kafi, additional deputy commissioner (Dhanmondi zone) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told The Daily Star.

The police said they have proof of the assault and that they would now look into the roles of the accused and to what extent they were individually involved in the incident.

Some witnesses got the incident on video which later went viral on social media.

In the video, injured navy officer Lt Wasif Ahmad is seen describing the incident to bystanders.

Dhaka-7 lawmaker Haji Salim's son Erfan, 37, councillor of ward-30 under the Dhaka South City Corporation and his bodyguard Zahidul Mollah, 35, was on a three-day remand each in a case filed over the attempted murder of the officer.

Lt Wasif lodged the case with Dhanmondi Police Station naming four people. The two other accused in the case are AB Siddique Dipu, 45, and Mizanur Rahman, 30. All four are now behind bars.

Driver Mizanur was on a one-day remand who admitted his role in the assault, police said.

Dipu was placed on a three-day remand on Monday.

Meanwhile, Dhanmondi police interrogated Erfan and Zahidul on the first-day of their remand. Then the investigation charge was transferred to the Detective Branch (DB) of police.

"There is no doubt that an assault took place. We will now investigate what roles the accused were playing individually during the incident. We are interrogating them," said HM Azimul Haque, deputy commissioner of Ramna division DB.

According to the statement of the case filed by the navy official, a vehicle, with the plate "Dhaka Metro-Gha 11-5736", rear-ended his motorcycle in Dhanmondi area when he and his wife were returning to their Dhaka Cantonment home from Nilkhet around 7:45pm on Sunday.

A man came out of the SUV and verbally abused them and left the spot. When the car stopped at a nearby set of traffic lights, Lt Wasif knocked on the car's window and introduced himself. After that, all passengers got off the vehicle and started hurling abuse and assaulting Lt Wasif, the complainant said.

When his wife came to save him, they also assaulted her, the case statement said. They then left the scene abandoning the car.

The complainant said he could identify DSCC councillor Erfan and Dipu as a protocol officer of Madina Group owned by Haji Salim from his ID card.

On Monday, Erfan and his bodyguard Zahidul were sentenced to one year in prison for illegally possessing walkie-talkies and foreign liquor, after the Rapid Action Battalion assisted by an executive magistrate conducted a raid in Haji Salim's building "Chan Sarder Dada Bari" at Debidas Ghat Lane in Chawkbazar.

Besides, four separate cases were filed against Erfan and Zahidul with Chawkbazar Police Station for carrying illegal firearms and possessing narcotics.

An officer at Chawkbazar Police Station told this correspondent that they have sought 14 days remand each for Erfan and Zahidul.