UGC official dies in Rab custody

The University Grants Commission official, who had been arrested last month for his alleged involvement in leaking questions of medical college and university admission exams, died in Rab custody yesterday.

Rapid Action Battalion-4 had arrested Omar Siraj, an assistant director of the UGC, his accomplice Ishan Imtiaj Hridoy and storekeeper of Bangladesh Judicial Service Commission Rezaul Karim on September 18 from the UGC office at the capital's Agargaon. Siraj, 32, felt pain in his chest around 2:00pm at the Rab-4 office in Mirpur and he was rushed to the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, Rab said.

"There, he died of heart attack in the evening," Major Maksud Alam, Rab deputy director (media wing), told The Daily Star.

His body was then taken to Dhaka Medical College morgue around 10:00pm, morgue sources said.

"Rab and police officials brought the body. There were no relatives of his," a morgue source said.

GG Biswas, officer-in-charge of Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station, said Siraj was under the custody of Rab-4 and that he did not know exactly how Siraj died.