Police arrest 2 ex-elite force officers over murders

Bangladesh police today arrested two sacked military officers for alleged involvement in the murder of seven people during their posting with the country's elite anti-crime force.
The arrest of the officers was made from their cantonment houses in a pre-dawn raid in connection with the murder of seven people, including a city councilor of Narayanganj.
The two officers were posted on deputation in the elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) when the murders took place.
The seven killed were first kidnapped by assailants from the Narayanganj city apparently in two separate incidents from their cars as they were traveling towards Dhaka around the same time on April 27.

"A joint team of military police and detective policemen arrested Lieuetant Colonel Tarek Sayeed Mohammad and Major Arif Hossain and they were taken into our (police) custody," a police spokesman told PTI.
Narayanganj's police chief Khandker Mohiduddin, however, said they also simultaneously raided the residence of sacked navy officer Lieutenant Commander M M Rana, who too was in RAB's Narayanganj unit, but he was not found at his house.

The three officers were withdrawn from RAB last month and sent back to their original services.
The army authorities sent Mohammad and Hossain to "premature retirement" and navy headquarters sent Rana to "forced retirement" after a nationwide outcry over the murders.

They were asked to stay inside their official cantonment residences as investigations were being conducted but the High Court last week ordered their arrest.
The arrest came after a protracted official procedure with the army authorities giving their green light to the arrests on Thursday night, allowing police to take them into custody.
The nearly decomposed bodies of six people, including councilor Nazrul Islam and lawyer Chandan Sarkar, were retrieved from the Shitalakya River on May 1 and the body of the seventh victim was found from the nearby area.
On May 9, authorities transferred all 85 police officers in Narayanganj and launched a high-level probe into the alleged role of the country's elite anti-crime force in the incident.

Police so far has arrested 15 suspects for the murders but the key accused, Nur Hossain, is still on the run.