A Dhaka court on Wednesday issued arrest warrant for Salauddin Salehin alias Sunny in the Humayun Azad murder case, a lawyer said.
Sunny was one of the three convicts snatched from a prison van on Sunday. Assistant Public Prosecutor ABM Basir Uddin told newsmen that the Fourth Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge AHM Habibur Rahman Bhuiyan issued the warrant on Tuesday.The order shows him a fugitive and asked the police to submit to the court a report.. Two of the five accused in the case: Hafez Mahmud alias Raqib Hasan, 35, and Sunny, 38, who were on death row for their involvement in 2005 bomb attacks across the country were snatched from a prison van. They were being taken to a Mymensingh court.
Another militant, Jahidul Islam alias Bomaru Mizan, 38, was freed up along with them. Police captured Raqib within a few hours but claimed that he had been killed in an ‘encounter’ between them and his associates on Monday.
On Tuesday, the court recorded the statements of three more prosecution witnesses in the Humayun Azad murder case. With the latest three, 25 prosecution witnesses have testified in the case.
Professor Azad, an author, poet, scholar, linguist and Dhaka University teacher, had come under an assassination attempt on Feb 27, 2004 near the Dhaka University campus during the Ekushey book fair. After several months of treatment, he went to Munich in Germany where he was found dead in his apartment on Aug 11, 2004.
Azad’s brother Manjur Kabir had filed an assassination attempt case with the Ramna Police Station over the attack but later it was changed into murder case following his death.
Police pressed charges against five leaders and activists of outlawed militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
The witnesses testifying on Tuesday were Sudha Sadan’s Centre for Research and Information (CRI) researcher Muhammad Ashraf Siddiqui Bitu, former press and political advisor to the German Embassy in Dhaka Mujtaba Ahmed Murshed and Combined Military Hospital physician Ranjan Kumar Deb, who had treated Azad after the attack.
Two accused, JMB leader Mizanur Rahman alias Minhaz alias Shafiq and Anwar Alam alias Bhagne Shahid were produced before the court on Tuesday. Another accused, Nur Mohammad alias Sabu, is on the run. – Court Correspondent
