More suspects to be arrested soon

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal yesterday said more suspects in the killing of police superintendent Babul Akter's wife would be arrested soon.

“We have already arrested two of them and will certainly be able to nab one or two more,” he told reporters at his secretariat office in the capital.

“We have identified those who killed and were involved in the murder,” he added.

The minister came up with the remarks a day after the Chittagong Metropolitan Police, showing two people arrested in a case, claimed that seven to eight criminals took part in the murder in exchange for money they received through a middleman.

According to CMP, the arrestees -- Wasim and Anwar -- were from Chittagong's Rangunia upazila.

Wasim was one of the three who attacked Babul's wife Mahmuda Khanam Mitu on her way to put her son on a school bus. He shot her with a gun while Anwar was in the area as a member of a backup team, CMP Commissioner Iqbal Bahar said on Sunday.

Replying to a query about Babul's interrogation in police custody in Dhaka, the minister said, “DB [Detective Branch] police had taken him for a while to have a chat with them [suspects] and to interrogate about why and how they committed the murder.”

Babul was picked up at about 1:00am from his father-in-law's house in Banasree and interrogated at the DB office for about 15 hours. Babul kept mum about his “confinement” and “interrogation”.

Quoting court sources, our Chittagong correspondent reports, seven people took part in the killing of Mitu. One Musa is the key person behind the killing.

The two arrestees in their statements before a court confessed that a man named Bhola had given them two guns, the sources added.

The seven suspected killers are Musa, Nabi, Anwar, Rashed, Kalu, Shajahan and Wasim.

In their confessional statements, the two reportedly said they were hired by Musa and that they did not know Mitu was SP Babul's wife. They came to know about Mitu's identity after watching the news on TV, according to court and police sources.

Anwar in his statement said Nabi stabbed Mitu from behind while Wasim shot her. However, Wasim in his statement said he had fired shots in the air and that Mitu was killed in Musa's bullets, said a court source, seeking anonymity.

The two gave their confessional statements before the Chittagong Metropolitan Magistrate's court after they were produced before it by police Sunday night, said Additional Deputy Commissioner (prosecution) Nirmalendu Bikash Chakraborty.

The CMP commissioner, however, refused to make any comments on the motive of the killing before the completion of the investigation.