Stabber quizzed

Detectives investigating the gruesome murder of Bishwajit Das yesterday began quizzing six of the 10 arrestees in the murder case, now on remand, to ascertain if the murder was pre-planned and whether they were instigated by others.
A team from the Detective Branch of Police first interrogated Rafiqul Islam Shakil, known as a Chhatra League cadre, who hacked Bishwajit with a machete while the other assailants beat the poor tailor with sticks and iron rods.
Earlier yesterday, a Dhaka court remanded Shakil for eight days.
“We asked him [Shakil] why he and the others killed him [Bishwajit] and if it was a planned murder or not,” investigation officer (IO) of the case Tajul Islam told this correspondent last night.
So far 10 people have been arrested in the case, and with the remand of Shakil, the number of those remanded rose to six, the IO said.
A DB team led by Tajul yesterday morning produced Shakil before a metropolitan magistrate's court, seeking a 10-day remand, and the court granted an eight-day remand.
On Saturday, a Dhaka court remanded for eight days two other accused in the case -- Saiful Islam and Rasheduzzaman Shaon -- arrested on the previous day.
Three of the seven people held earlier for the murder were also remanded for eight days. They are Mahfuzur Rahman Nahid, HM Kibria and Mohammad Kayyum Miah.
In his forwarding report to the court yesterday, Tajul, who is an inspector of Bomb Disposal Unit of the DB, said Shakil is the prime accused in the case as they identified him from photos and video footages of the murder. Shakil was seen hacking Bishwajit with a machete.
Talking to this correspondent, the IO said all the six now on remand confessed their involvement in the murder but it was yet to be ascertained if they were Chhatra League activists.
“We are hopeful of unearthing everything concerning the murder soon,” he added.
Bishwajit, 24, was beaten and hacked to death by activists of the pro-Awami League student body Chhatra League at Johnson Road in Old Dhaka during the opposition-called December 9 blockade.
Detectives arrested Shakil, a second-year student of Islamic history at Jagannath University, at a relative's house in Barguna through tracking his mobile phone calls early Saturday. Later at night, they also recovered the machete from a shop on the JnU campus.