The Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) investigating the case of attempt on the life of a new political party leader in the Bangladesh capital’s Purana Paltan area on December 12 has no evidence so far to suggest that the motorcycle-borne assailants crossed the border into India.
Speaking to Northeast News over phone, Deputy Commissioner (Media) Talebur Rahman said, “We have no evidence yet to suggest that the assailants crossed over to India”.
One among two bike-borne suspects opened fire on Inquilab Mancha Convenor Sheikh Osman Hadi on December 12 (Friday) afternoon, injuring him seriously.
Dismissing social media posts claiming that the two assailants – one of them being identified as Faisal Karim Masud alias Daud Khan – crossed over to India before reaching Guwahati in Assam, Rahman said that DMP sleuths have so far arrested three persons in the case.
“While one was arrested in Dhaka, the other two were held in Sherpur,” Rahman said, adding that the probe into the sensational attempt to murder case was in a “preliminary stage”.
Earlier, DMP Commissioner Sheikh Mohammad Sajjat Ali said that the suspects were in Bangladesh and have not crossed into India.
This, he said, was based on immigration records, which suggested that they had not used their passports. The passports of the two suspects have been blocked, Ali said.
Rahman’s revelations to Northeast News come in the backdrop of suggestions by the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry that Indian authorities should arrest and hand over the suspects in the event they cross the border and try to take shelter there.
Sharif Osman Hadi, convenor of the newly formed Inquilab Mancha and a likely candidate for the Dhaka-8 constituency for the forthcoming February 12 general election, was shot at by one of the two motorcycle-borne assailants on Culvert Road in the capital’s Purana Paltan area on December 12.
Hadi, a rabble-rouser, was grievously injured with the bullet piercing his skull behind his right ear before damaging parts of his brainstem and then exiting from a location close to his left ear.
He was rushed to Dhaka Medical College where he received preliminary treatment before he was moved to Evercare Hospital in Gulshan.
Neurosurgeons performed a complicated surgery on Hadi’s skull and brain before claiming that even as the patient was fighting for his life, his condition remained serious and uncertain.
Video footages culled from CCTV recordings indicated one of the assailants, riding pillion, fired a single shot from a pistol before the motorbike he was on sped away.
Within hours, social media posts claimed that Masud, the man who supposedly fired the shot, worked closely with Hadi as part of Inquilab Mancha although he allegedly had Chhatra League antecedents.
The Chhatra League is the Awami League’s students’ wing. Both the organisations were banned in October this year by the Mohammad Yunus-led interim government.
As reports of the attempt on Hadi’s life erupted on social media and newspapers, with some claiming that Masud had past links with the Chhatra League and others alleging that he was an Islami Chhatra Shibir cadre affiliated with the Inquilab Mancha, multiple videos surfaced showing Hadi and Masud together at various times and moments.
ALSO READ: Meghalaya: East Jaintia Hills administration demolishes unauthorised coke plants
A Facebook post by a Bangladesh social influencer living in the UK claimed that the two assailants crossed into Assam before heading for Guwahati.
The Yunus regime, meanwhile, sought to muddy the waters by reacting to former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s supposed statements on the forthcoming elections as well as the attempt on Hadi’s life.
While the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry summoned Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka Pranay Verma to lodge a protest on why Sheikh Hasina continued to make political statements while in refuge in New Delhi, it also wanted that Hadi’s assailants be arrested and handed over to Bangladeshi authorities should they be in India.
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs dismissed suggestions that the Haji’s assailants had escaped to India.
