At 9:57 pm on 8 November, a message went from the WhatsApp number of police superintendent (SP) Mohammad Jahangir Alam to an unnamed person. It read: “Assalamu alaikum, sir. Joy Bangla, Joy Bangabandhu. Best wishes, sir. I will keep chanting Joy Bangla to the last drop of my blood. Sir, December is a life-or-death gamble. The people will pour onto the streets like bees. In 1996, on my father’s instruction and inspired by Bangabandhu’s ideals, I took to the streets for a caretaker government even as a child, sir. Bangladesh must be rescued, sir.”
Earlier, at 9:23 pm, a message in English had gone out: “Dear sir Best wishes for you. Inshallah Bangladesh will be restored to previous state in December. Stay fine sir. Regards sir.”
Jahangir did not know that intelligence officers suspected him of passing administrative information to leaders and activists of the Awami League. Word of the messages was quietly reaching them. On 10 November his personal and official mobile phones were seized. A forensic examination found evidence of the messages, and the investigation turned up more.
At about 10:30 pm on Saturday he was arrested at the police officers’ mess on Road 2 of the Nasirabad Housing Society in Chattogram city. Before the arrest, Assistant Superintendent Mohammad Abul Kashem Chowdhury of the Chattogram Range Reserve Force (RRF) filed a case against him at Panchlaish police station. The case was filed under sections 124(A) and 153 of the Penal Code, for sedition through anti-state inflammatory statements and for inciting rioting and violence.
The first information report says that although he was a police officer, Jahangir Alam kept in regular contact through Telegram groups and WhatsApp with fugitive Awami League leaders living abroad, or with their backers. With their support, it says, he was helping draw up and carry out a blueprint for a subversive conspiracy to overthrow the present government and the state system and return the country to its former state.
Md Abdul Quddus Chowdhury, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of the Chattogram police range, told Agamir Shomoy: “We found two specific messages on his mobile phone. They contain elements of sedition. A case has been filed. The investigation will make things clearer.”
The DIG said the investigation would also look into whether anyone else in the law enforcement agencies was involved in such a conspiracy with Jahangir.
Police officers said Jahangir Alam sent the messages from a WhatsApp account opened with his personal mobile number. The account was named “Daydreamer”. No one will say which leader of the banned Awami League received them.
Police officers did hint, however, that the messages may have gone to a leader who held the home ministry under the Awami League government and to an “important” member of the banned party’s presidium. “It is not clear who the messages were sent to,” DIG Abdul Quddus Chowdhury said. “That information will surely come out when he is questioned.”
Chattogram Metropolitan Magistrate Court 4’s magistrate, Mohammad Mostafa, granted four days’ remand to question Jahangir in the sedition case. Inspector Russel Mahmud of the Chattogram Metropolitan Police (CMP) Special Response Unit (SRU) is investigating the case.
Mohammad Jahangir Alam joined the police in 2010. When the Awami League government fell on 5 August 2024, he was serving as additional superintendent of police in Feni district. His last post was deputy commandant of the RRF in Chattogram, at the rank of superintendent. He is from Chandapasha village in Shibpur upazila of Narsingdi district.
Police officers said the report of the investigation into the allegations has been sent to police headquarters, which will take departmental disciplinary action against him.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report