'Shootout' kills youth

A youth was killed in a "shootout" with a Detective Branch team in the capital's Jatrabari area, taking the death toll in such incidents to 24 since the BNP-led alliance declared the nationwide blockade on January 5.

Of the victims, 15 were killed in "shootouts" with police while nine with the Rapid Action Battalion. In the last six days, some 10 "gunfights" left 11 people dead.

Yesterday's victim was Russell Sarder of Fatullah, Narayanganj, his family said, adding he was an employee of a mobile servicing shop in South Keraniganj area. 

His newly married wife Shefali Begum broke down in tears, embracing the lifeless body smeared with blood and mud on a trolley at the Dhaka Medical College morgue.  

"Mother, your son is no more. They killed him. Who will now look after me?" she told her mother-in-law over the phone around 2:10pm.

She told The Daily Star that her husband went out of their residence for his workplace around 11:00am on Thursday. Two hours later, his cell phone was found switched off.

Russell had been traceless since then, Shefali claimed, adding she went to at least nine police stations in the capital and Keraniganj in search of her husband but none could give her any clue.

Talking to this correspondent over the phone, his brother Akash Sarder claimed that five to six months ago, South Keraniganj police arrested him from his home and demanded Tk 50,000 for his release.

"As we could not afford the money, they implicated him [Russell] in a murder case. He was on bail," he said.  

DB VERSION

A group of criminals hurled cocktails and petrol bombs at DB van in Matuail area in Jatrabari around 3:00am. They also fired bullets, prompting the DB men to retaliate with shooting that left a man injured, said Jahangir Hossain Matubbar, deputy commissioner of DB (east) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police. 

Law enforcers took the injured to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where he was declared dead.

A pistol, two bullets, four crude bombs and two petrol bombs were recovered from the spot, claimed the DC.

Watching TV news on the incident, family members went to DMC morgue around noon and identified the dead as Russel Sardar.

But DC Jahangir Hossain claimed the man was known as Boma Rasel, whose name came in the confessional statements of Shahidullah Khan and Parvez. The two are accused in cases for the January 23 Jatrabari bus arson that left 28 people injured and one dead.

UNIDENTIFIED BODY

On information from locals, a police team recovered a bullet-hit male body from the capital's Mirpur yesterday. Aged 30 to 35, he was shot in the head.

Atiqur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Cantonment Police Station, said the body was abandoned near a garbage bin on Purabi-Kalshi road in Mirpur. The man was in gabardine trousers, a shirt and an ash-coloured jacket.

The body was sent it to DMC morgue for autopsy.

Police claimed that they found seven crude bombs and seven petrol bombs beside the body.