A young shoe factory worker was killed and a teenage boy was injured in what the police claimed was crossfire at West Rampura in the city in the early hours of Saturday.
The police alleged that the deceased, Shyamol Bepary, a 22-year-old worker of a Savar shoe factory hailing from Kishoreganj, as well as the wounded, Asif Anik, 18, a computer trainee of Rampura, had been involved in various crimes like mugging and extortion in Rampura area.
The version of the events leading to the crossfire given by the Rampura police in the morning however differed a lot from that offered later by the Dhaka Metropolitan Police in a handout.
Sadhan Chandra Dhar, the duty officer at Rampura police station in the morning told New Age that a police patrol team spotted a gang as it gathered at Balurmath near the Mahanagar Project at around 2:00am to commit a crime.
When the police team challenged them, the gang opened fire on the law-enforcers, prompting the latter to fire back, the Rampura police said.
After the ‘gunfight’, the patrol team found Shyamal and Anik lying in a pool of blood on the spot with bullet wounds, with the rest of the gang fleeing the scene, they added.
Both the injured were taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where Shyamal succumbed to his injuries at 9:00am.
Later, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police in a handout said, tipped off, a police team along with two detainees named Shyamal and Anik went on an operation against a group of miscreants at Balurmath near the Mahanagor Project at about 1:45am on Saturday.
As the team approached the spot, the miscreants opened fire on the police ‘in an effort to take away their detained accomplishes,’ triggering a ‘gunfight’ that left both the detainees wounded on the spot, the DMP handout said.
Anik, before being taken to the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation for a surgical operation, told New Age that he had been picked up by plainclothesmen on Friday on his way back home from the Jumma prayer.
The plainclothesmen took him to the police station blindfolded, he said, adding, ‘Shyamal and I were taken to Balurmath at about 2:00am today. There the police asked me to pray.’
‘As I started to pray, they fired a blank shot and then shot me and Shyamal,’ he added.
Anik’s family said the police demanded Tk 1 lakh from us for his release.
The police however denied the allegation.
While receiving Shyamal’s body from the DMCH morgue, his elder brother Khayrul Bapary told New Age that Shyamal was picked up by plainclothesmen from East Rampura at about 7:00pm on Saturday.
Witnesses said Shyamal at that time was playing carom with his friends on Titas Road.
‘We waited at the police station till 12:30am but left without getting a glimpse of my brother. Later we came to know he was killed in crossfire,’ Khayrul said, adding, ‘My brother used to be involved in criminal activities a few years ago but he had left all that and returned to a normal life as a shoe factory worker under pressure from his family.’
This was the fourth extrajudicial killing in the city since January 10.
Before this, law-enforcers had killed college student Kazi Imtiaz Ahmed Abir, 22, at Pallabi on Monday night, Awami League leader Humayun Kabir Biplob, 37, at Shahjahanpur early Wednesday, and Shah Alam Apu, 25, on Thursday.
With this the death toll in ‘crossfire,’ ‘gunfight’ or ‘encounter’ with law-enforcers has reached 259 since the Awami League-led alliance came to office, although the AL in its election manifesto had promised to put an end to ‘extrajudicial killings’.
