Dhaka: A Bangladesh court on Monday ordered that former lawmaker and Awami League leader B M Mozammel Haque be shown arrested in connection with an attempted murder case during the 2024 July protests in Dhaka’s Bhatara area, local media reported.
The order was issued by Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Ehsanul Islam in the afternoon after hearing an application moved by Sub-Inspector (SI) Habibur Rahman of Bhatara Police Station, the investigating officer of the case.
According to the case statement, the complainant Shamim Mia participated in the mass uprising in Dhaka’s Bhatara area on July 19, 2024. He sustained four bullet wounds in different parts of his body during the demonstration.
After receiving medical treatment, Shamim filed an attempted murder case against several people, including former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. B M Mozammel Haque, who was named as an accused in the initial First Information Report (FIR), was subsequently shown arrested in connection with the case, Bangladesh’s leading newspaper ‘The Daily Observer’ reported.
The latest arrest comes against the backdrop of an escalating crackdown on Awami League leaders and activists that began during the period of the previous Muhammad Yunus-led interim government and has persisted under the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) administration.
Last week, the body of a local Awami League leader was found floating in the Louhajang River near his home in Mirzapur upazila of Bangladesh’s Tangail district, several hours after he disappeared while fishing, with his family alleging that he had been murdered.
The deceased was identified as 48-year-old Yunus Al Murshed, president of the Awami League’s Ward 9 unit under Mirzapur municipality and a resident of Kanthalia village.
The circumstances surrounding his death have raised concerns among local residents and family members, with doubts emerging over whether he died by accidental drowning or was killed before his body was thrown into the water. His family cited injury marks on the body, alleging foul play, ‘The Daily Observer’ reported.
Expressing grave concern over the incident, the Awami League said that the recovery of the floating and critically bruised body of Murshed on October 30 from a river marks “another poignant awakening before the world about the ongoing mass killings” targeting citizens affiliated with the party.
“With his eyes gouged out, the family members of the slain leader demanded justice for the brutal murder, but cops have not arrested anyone as part of widespread impunity for rampant killing of dissenters in Bangladesh. Like this helpless family, families of at least a thousand murdered leaders and activists of the Awami League are passing their days in fear in the aftermath of August 5, 2024. Irony is these extrajudicial killings are carried out in the name of establishing democracy, abusing the extrajudicial ban on Awami League,” the party stated.
“Yet UN, western democracies and other rights bodies continue to defend such grisly rights abuses by even refusing to acknowledge and condemn these killings for over two years in the name of endorsing so-called reform,” it added.
(IANS)
