A doctor of the National Institute of Diseases of the Chest and Hospital (NIDCH) was stabbed to death by unknown assailants at his Mohakhali residence in the capital yesterday.
Police say the dead, Narayan Chandra Dutta Nitai, an assistant professor, might have been a victim of robbery, but relatives suspect it was a planned murder.
The 47-year-old physician was also an executive councillor of Bangladesh Medical Association (BMA) and a central committee member of Swadhinata Chikitshak Parishad (Sachip).
He had been living in the duplex quarter with his physician wife and mother since 2009. But he was alone on the first floor of the home when he was stabbed between 2:00am and 3:00am. His wife was visiting her village home and his mother was sleeping on the ground floor.
“Around 3:00am, I heard someone groaning,” said his mother, Monju Dutta.
At this, she went to the first floor and knocked on the door, which was locked from inside, she said, adding: “A few moments later Nitai, bleeding profusely, himself opened the door.
“I took him to the ground floor when he told me that robbers had stabbed him indiscriminately.”
He was then rushed to the NIDCH where he was declared dead around 4:00am.
During a visit to the residence of the victim, this correspondent found two almirahs ransacked and the rods of a window broken.
Khandker Lutful Kabir, deputy commissioner police (Gulshan), said the law enforcers primarily suspected that the criminals entered the room through cutting some window rods.
“When the doctor woke up, they might have stabbed him,” he added.
However, Lucky Chowdhury, the victim’s wife, said her husband recently had an argument with some doctors of the NIDCH over the appointment of some grade three and four employees.
“Some unknown people threatened my husband several times over the issue,” Lucky said.
The victim’s body was sent to his village home in Chittagong for cremation.
Police detained four suspects and recovered two knives, a rod cutter and two pairs of sandals from the spot.
Meanwhile, protesting the killing, doctors and employees of the NIDCH staged demonstrations and announced a three-day work abstention from today.
Agitating doctors of BMA also threatened to suspend medical services at all hospitals across the country from tomorrow if the killers were not caught within 24 hours.
Home Minister Shahara Khatun said the killers would be arrested soon.
Health and Family Welfare Minister AHM Ruhul Haque, prime minister’s Health and Social Welfare Adviser Syed Modasser Ali and leaders of different doctors’ associations visited Nitai’s residence.
-With The Daily Star input
