Is he the culprit?
Staff Reporter
Shortly before midnight on New Year's eve, a mob of around 20 mercilessly beat a young man of about 20 at Road 12A in Dhanmondi. There were two counts of allegations against the terrified young man in relatively decent outfit. A few people said he had just snatched a gold chain from a rickshaw passenger and to others he was a car thief. It so happened that on December 30 evening, a private car was stolen at gunpoint in front of the local Member of Parliament's office. The driver of the stolen car was sitting in front of the office gate on New Year's eve, when the young man walked by. The driver pointed his finger at the young man and shouted he was one of the thieves who stole the car. As the mob beat the boy up mercilessly, he bled profusely from his ear, nose and head. The rage of the mob and the indiscriminate beating on his most sensitive parts, were such that the boy faced almost certain death if the beating continued for a while more. Amidst the drama, a photojournalist, who claimed to work for a national Bangla daily, took photographs of the violent proceedings. Two armed policemen on foot patrol, hardly 50 feet away stood in the dark and watched. Suddenly a resident of a nearby house intercepted. He approached the mob and inquired what had happened. Thinking that foul play might have been in progress, the resident immediately took out a whistle from his pocket and blew it as hard as he could. The beating suddenly stopped and some of the enraged members of the mob backed off and disappeared. The powerful bursts of the whistle puzzled the policemen who had stood as bystanders from the very beginning. Now they had to intervene. The young man was unconscious and lay on the road. A police car soon picked him up and eventually admitted him to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Hospital sources said that ASI Mustak of Dhanmondi police station brought Alamgir to the hospital, but the Dhanmondi police could not confirm whether a case was filed against him.
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