Former DIG says Awami lawmaker Hasanat ordered 2015 ‘crossfire’ killings of two BNP activists

A former senior police officer has alleged that two BNP-linked activists were killed in a staged “crossfire” in Barishal in 2015 on the orders of former Awami League lawmaker Abul Hasanat Abdullah, with police from another station brought in after local officers refused to carry out the killing.

The International Crimes Tribunal-2 on Tuesday admitted as evidence a written statement by Md Humayun Kabir, then deputy inspector general of police for Barishal Range, according to Prosecutor Faruk Ahmad.

Humayun is currently undergoing medical treatment in India and could not appear before the tribunal because of illness. Following a prosecution application, his written statement was presented through the investigation officer and accepted by the tribunal.

The case concerns the deaths of Tipu Hawlader, then joint general secretary of the Agailjhara upazila unit of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, and Kabir Molla, then organising secretary of the local unit of Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha, or JASAS.

The prosecution alleges that the two were political rivals of Hasanat and were killed after he failed to counter them politically. Similar allegations have previously been presented to the tribunal by family members and other prosecution witnesses.

According to the formal charges, Tipu and Kabir were shot dead near a bridge on the Agailjhara bypass of the Gournadi-Gopalganj highway on the night of February 21, 2015, in what police presented at the time as a “crossfire.”

Humayun’s statement, however, alleges that the two men had already been detained.

He said Tipu and Kabir were arrested in Dhaka and Keraniganj in connection with a case over the burning of a fruit-carrying vehicle in Agailjhara. The arrests were made under the supervision of AKM Ehsanullah, then Barishal superintendent of police, according to the statement.

Humayun said he learned after arriving at his office the following morning that the two men had been killed extrajudicially. He then summoned Ehsanullah and strongly reprimanded him.

The statement gives a further account of how the alleged killings were carried out.

According to Humayun, Monirul Islam, then officer-in-charge of Agailjhara Police Station, told him that the detainees had been taken to the Detective Branch office on the SP’s instructions.

When an order was subsequently given to kill them in a “crossfire,” officers from Agailjhara Police Station refused, Humayun said.

He alleged that Ehsanullah then brought in police personnel from another station to carry out the killings.

The former SP later went to the police station and personally recorded a note in the general diary, according to Humayun’s statement.

Earlier testimony before the tribunal has also alleged that Agailjhara police personnel refused to participate in the “crossfire” and that officers from Uzirpur were subsequently brought in.

Humayun further alleged that Ehsanullah was a close confidant of Hasanat and regularly carried out tasks at the former lawmaker’s behest.

He said he had sent adverse remarks about Ehsanullah’s conduct in his Annual Confidential Report to Police Headquarters and requested that the SP be transferred out of Barishal Range.

Ehsanullah was subsequently transferred to Magura, according to the statement.

Humayun alleged, however, that Ehsanullah later secured promotion to additional DIG because of his powerful connections and returned to Barishal Range.

The four accused in the crimes-against-humanity case are Hasanat, Ehsanullah and former Uzirpur Police Station assistant sub-inspectors Md Mahabul Islam and Md Jasim Uddin.

Mahabul and Jasim are in custody, while Hasanat and Ehsanullah have been reported as absconding. The tribunal framed charges against the four in May.

The prosecution alleges that Hasanat abused state power to target Tipu and Kabir because they were political opponents and that Ehsanullah and subordinate police officers carried out the plan.

The tribunal has previously heard testimony from relatives of both victims.

In August, Kabir’s son Ashikur Rahman Asif testified that his father had been picked up by plainclothes men in 2015 and later killed in what authorities described as a “crossfire.”

Earlier this month, Tipu’s widow Suma Akter told the tribunal that her husband had left for Dhaka after coming under political pressure. She said she later learned that he had been picked up by DB police and subsequently saw television reports that Tipu and Kabir had been killed in a “gunfight.”

The allegations against Hasanat, Ehsanullah and the two former police officers remain before the tribunal and have not been established by a final verdict.

--