An intelligence agency and senior officials of Dhaka EPZ had contact with the suspected killers of garments industry labour leader Aminul Islam. They had spoken to him several times over cell phone the night before his body was discovered. This has been mentioned in the charge sheet submitted by the police.
The intelligence agency and the EPZ officials have not been accused in the murder case. Their names are not in the charge sheet and they have not been called on as witnesses either.
An officer involved in the investigations told Prothom Alo they will not comment on the issue. Everything has been said in the charge sheet.
The killed Aminul Islam had been an organiser of Bangladesh Centre for Workers Solidarity (BCWS) and also a leader of Bangladesh Garments and Industrial Workers Federation. On April 4 2012, another worker Mostfizur Rahman called Aminul Islam from Ashulia. His wounded body was discovered the next day on 5 April in Ghatail, Tangail.
After his body was discovered, the police buried him as an unidentified body and a case was filed against unknown assailants. The case as investigated by the detective branch (DB) of Ghatail police station, Tangail and later by the criminal investigation department (CID). In November 2013 the CID assistant police super Fazlul Kabir submitted the charge sheet in the case. Only Mostafizur Rahman was accused of the murder. He has been missing since the murder and in the past three years not a single witness in the case has been found.
Before Aminul’s murder, everyone knew Mostafizur to be a common worker. Later police investigations revealed he was a source for the national security intelligence (NSI) and Dhaka EPZ officials. EPZ would pay Mostafizur Tk 7500 a month as their source. He was paid ostensibly as an employee of a hospital under BEPZA, though he did not work there.
The charge sheet stated, on the night of 4 April, certain intelligence officers and EPZ security officer Lt. Col. Mustafizur Rahman Khan and Major Shahjahan Kabir spoke to Mostafiz over cell phone. They said they were in contact with him to know about unrest in a certain garment factory.
Aminul’s relations and colleagues said that labour unrest is a regular feature the garment industry area. Normally lower level officers would contact a source like Mostafizur. It needs to be seen why both the NSI officials and the EPZ officials had felt it necessary to contact him that night.
Kalpana Akhter, executive director of BCWS, told Prothom Alo, “The charge sheet is incomplete. It has no answers as to who was with Mostafiz when Aminul was picked up, which car he was taken in, where he was tortured and so on. We want to clearly state, it was not possible for Mostafizur to kill Aminul himself. Now it has been revealed that Mostafizur was in contact with an intelligence agency and EPZ officials. As these officers were influential, their names haven’t appeared on the charge sheet and they haven’t been arrested.”
Kalpana Akhter said, the case is being delayed because of these influential officers. The police submitted the charge sheet in November 2013. A court notice was sent to the defendant, but the defendant hasn’t received the notice as yet.
-Prothom Alo
