A court in Chittagong has placed two accused on remand in connection with hacking and beating lawyer Saiful Islam to death in the port city during a clash between the followers of former ISKCON leader Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, police and a group of lawyers on November 26.
The accused Chandan Das and Ripon Das were placed on remand on Friday (December 6) for questioning in the murder of Advocate Saiful Islam Alif on the Chittagong court premises.
Chittagong Metropolitan Magistrate Kazi Shariful Islam placed them on remand at about 3:00pm after hearing a remand petition of police.
Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP)'s additional commissioner (Prosecution) Mafizur Rahman said Kotwali Police submitted a petition to the court to place the two accused on a ten-day remand each. After hearing on the petition, the court placed Chandan Das on a seven-day remand and Ripon Das on a five-day remand.
Earlier, the accused were brought at the court amid stringent security measures. Chandan and Ripon had worn helmets and bullet-proof jackets. Apart from police, army personnel were also deployed at the court premises to maintain security. Though there were less number of justice seekers as it was a holiday on Friday, blanket security measures were taken over producing the two accused before the court. Both the accused are the inhabitants of Kotwali Sebak Colony and Patharghata area in the port city.
Police arrested Chandan Das from Bhairab upazila in Kishoreganj district on Wednesday night.
Ripon Das, son of Mridul Das, was arrested from Koinpura Jelepara under Chatri union of Anwar upazila in Chittagong district on Thursday evening. He works at a pharmacy in Chawkbazar.
According to police, after analyzing the video footage of advocate Saiful Islam murder, they reached the conclusion that Chandan, wearing an ash colour helmet, orange colour Y-shirt and black trousers was hacking Saiful with a machete (kirich) in his right hand. During the incident, there was a 'boti' in Ripon's hands, and he was wearing a blue- coloured T-shirt, jeans pants and a red-coloured helmet.
Police said after the murder, Chandan went into hiding. Ripon also seen carrying a sharp weapon, and wearing a red helmet during the murder.
A video footage, spanning over 52-second, of the place of occurrence was collected by police. They found that Chandan, Om Das started hacking advocate Saiful Islam Alif with sharp weapons, while others were beating him. There were 25 to 30 more people, and most of them were sweepers.
