Two people were killed in an armed attack amid a dispute between two groups over drug dealing and local dominance in Khoksa upazila, Kushtia. The incident happened at around 12:30am on Friday in the Debinagar brickfield area of Osmanpur union in the upazila. At least two others were injured. Police have detained two people on suspicion of involvement in the killings.
The dead are Faruk Hossain, 40, son of the late Chand Ali of the Hijolbot brickfield area of Osmanpur union, and Abdul Sheikh, 25, son of Atiar Sheikh of Khanpur village in the same union. Among the injured, Mulluk Mondal is being treated at Kushtia General Hospital. After the incident, police detained two people, village police member Mintu Chowkidar and Nur Amin.
According to police and locals, a dispute had long been running between the local Salim Hossain and Mintu Chowkidar groups over drug dealing and dominance, and tension flared over it on 13 July. On Friday evening, a man named Hasan Sheikh was seriously injured in an attack by rivals, after which the situation grew more tense at night. Locals say that at around 12:30am a group of 80 to 100 people attacked Salim Hossain’s house with local weapons; Salim Hossain managed to flee, but Faruk Hossain, Abdul Sheikh and Mulluk Mondal, who were in the house, were caught by the attackers, who hacked them with sharp weapons, seriously injuring them. Faruk and Abdul Sheikh died on the spot, and locals took the injured Mulluk Mondal to Kushtia General Hospital.
Faruk’s widow, Rahela, alleged that rivals had offered her husband a role in drug dealing and, when he refused, had vandalised their home a month earlier and forced them to leave the area, after which Faruk had taken shelter with a relative in Debinagar, where he was attacked and killed. Abdul Sheikh’s mother, Moyna Khatun, said her son had been staying away from home for about two weeks in fear of rivals, and that after her husband was hacked and injured on Friday evening, her son was also killed late at night. Police, however, say the killings arose from a dispute between two local groups over local dominance, and that the real cause and those involved are being investigated. Khoksa police officer-in-charge (OC) Molla Zakir Hossain said the killings resulted from the dispute between the local Mintu Chowkidar and Salim Hossain groups, that extra police had been deployed and operations were under way to identify and arrest those involved, with two already detained. Police said the two bodies had been recovered and sent to the morgue of Kushtia General Hospital for post-mortem, and that legal proceedings over the incident were under way.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report