Contrary to claims made by a senior Dhaka Metropolitan Police officer today, the Tura district police has not arrested any Indian national supposedly involved in the helping the two main accused persons allegedly involved in firing at Inquilab Mancha Convenor Osman Goni, alias Sharif Osman Hadi, on December 12.
Bangladeshi media reports quoting Additional Commissioner (Crime and Operations) Nazrul Islam said that “informal” information gathered by DMP detectives suggested that two persons who helped the alleged killers, Faisal Karim Masud and Alamgir Hossein, cross over to Meghalaya had been arrested in Tura municipal area.
After groping in the dark for two weeks of the shootout, which caused Goni’s death in a Singapore hospital, where he was flown for focused treatment, the DMP’s claim was today disputed by Meghalaya police officers.
Officers-in-charge of at least four police stations that Northeast News contacted affirmed that no arrests had been made in areas under their jurisdiction.
Earlier, Dhaka media reports said that the two Indian nationals who allegedly assisted Masud and Hossein after they supposedly crossed over to India, supposedly on December 13, were identified as Putti, a woman, and Samir, a taxi driver.
While Tura police station Sub-Inspector T J Sangma told Northeast News that he was “aware of the case in Dhaka”, he emphatically denied that “any arrests have been made” from any area under this police station.
Similar affirmations were made by Phulbari Sub-Inspector S N Yadav, Dadenggre Officer-in-Charge Tridib Sangma and another SI at Tikrikilla police station. Tura is part of Meghalaya’s West Garo Hills district which has 11 police stations.
In fact, Yadav revealed that the “mention of any such arrests would have been made on the WhatsApp group of all officers of Tura district police. But no such mention was made on the group”.
Tura district Superintendent of Police Abraham T Sangma was out of station on training, Additional SP Priyanka Watre Sangma could not be contacted as her phone was found to be switched off.
Contacted over WhatsApp call, DMP Deputy Commissioner Talebur Rahman said that while he had no “personal knowledge” of the so-called arrests in Meghalaya, he added that the Additional Commissioner (Nazrul Islam) had received “informal information” about the arrest of Putti and Samir.
Curiously enough, a joint team of DMP detectives and Border Guard Bangladesh personnel conducted intensive searches from December 12 evening to December 26 in Myemensing district, on the India-Bangladesh border, but drew a blank.
A few days ago, a senior DMP officer went on record to say that the police had no evidence to claim that Masud and Hossein had crossed over to India.
Today’s claims by Nazrul Islam are therefore puzzling, in the backdrop of the affirmations by Tura police officers that Northeast News spoke with.
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Even more puzzling are claims that appeared in posts by a Bangladeshi social media influencer less than 12 hours after a shot was fired at Osman Goni on Culvert Road in Dhaka’s Purana Paltan area.
While CCTV footages appeared within a few hours of the incident, by the morning of December 13 the same social media influencer yet again posted that Masud and Hossein had crossed over to India from Haluaghat in Myemensing before proceeding to Guwahati.
The post claimed that they had made calls from an Indian number +91600** to at least five phone numbers in Bangladesh.
While these calls could not have been traced by Bangladeshi police as they originated in an Indian mobile telephony circle, it would have been impossible to know in advance that Faisal and Hossein would make calls – either on normal mobile phone lines or WhatsApp – to those five numbers in Bangladesh.
