Police: Writer, publisher Shahjahan Bachchu’s killers still in Bangladesh

Police say they will arrest three suspects soon
Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) militants, who killed publisher and freethinking writer, Shahjahan Bachchu, in Munshiganj, are yet to flee abroad, police say.

The primary individual accused in Bachchu murder case, Abdur Rahman, was killed in an alleged gunfight on June 28—but police are yet to arrest the other three suspects.

Police have not released the names of the three suspects who gunned down 60-year-old Bachchu on June 11, in Sirajdikhan upazila.

“The militants involved in the killing do not seem to have left the country. We are tracing them and it will be possible to arrest them soon,” Munshiganj police Superintendent Md Zayedul Alam told the Dhaka Tribune.

Police said Rahman was arrested in Gazipur with two pistols, 21 bullets, and four grenades. He had admitted to being involved in Bachchu’s killing during an initial interrogation. He told police that he was the military commander of JMB’s Dhaka division.

About three months before the killing, the militant rented the house of expatriate Yakub Ali, in Sirajdikhan’s Khasmohol Baluchar.

The house is currently empty. Locals said Yakub has been abroad for several years. His wife rented out the house and lives with her parents.

After police paid a visit, locals came to know that militants were living there. The house is surrounded by a wall made of tin. There are no houses opposite from Yakub’s residence.

Baluchar’s ward 6 Union Parishad member Md Moslem Uddin said: “We did not know who rented the house. We learned that militants lived there only after the police came.”

Meanwhile, the Bachchu murder case has been transferred to Munshiganj Detective Branch. DB police’s Officer-in-Charge Md Yunus Ali declined to comment about the case, saying the matter “is very sensitive.”

“We cannot disclose the names of the suspects, for the sake of the investigation, but we will arrest them soon,” he said.

Who was Bachchu?
Bachchu was the owner of Bishaka Prokashoni. He was the acting editor of the “Amader Bikrampur” weekly magazine. The freethinking writer also wrote blog posts and was active on Facebook.

He was involved with the leftist Chhatra Union, in his student days, and later joined the Communist Party of Bangladesh. He was its Munshiganj unit general secretary from 2012-2014.

dhakatribune

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