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Top city AL leader slain

Dawn-to-dusk hartal in capital today

Staff Correspondent
Unknown assailants gunned down Law Affairs Secretary of Dhaka City Awami League (AL) Advocate Khorshed Alam Bacchu at Tejgaon yesterday, triggering violent street demonstrations in the capital.
The main opposition has called a dawn-to-dusk hartal in the city for today in protest against the murder of Khorshed, a Supreme Court lawyer and also joint general secretary of Awami Ainjibi Parishad, a pro-opposition lawyers' forum.
Three gunmen sprayed pointblank around 10 bullets on Khorshed, 45, minutes after he came out of his 180/A, Tejkunipara house at about 9:45am. The assailants sped off in a CNG-run autorickshaw in which they came, leaving him dead on the spot.
He took at least nine bullets in the forehead, throat, chest, abdomen and one of his legs.
The motive behind the coldblooded murder could not be immediately known.
The slaying sparked huge protests by hundreds of locals, and AL leaders and activists, who demonstrated against the government and demanded arrest and punishment to the killers.
The rampaging protestors vandalised a good number of vehicles on Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue and blockaded the road for an hour causing severe traffic gridlock.
The police clubbed the demonstrators, touching off a pitched battle between the law-enforcers and the agitators, who rained stones and other objects on the speeding vehicles.
Advocate Khorshed's colleagues in the Court of District and Sessions Judge, Dhaka, where he also practised law, put off their work from 11:00am yesterday in protest. Supreme Court lawyers also stopped their work from 2:00pm yesterday and will observe a daylong work stoppage today.
Awami League General Secretary Abdul Jalil and other party leaders visited the scene and Tejgaon Police Station to see Khorshed's bullet-riddled body.
EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT
Eyewitnesses said three youths started firing point-blank at Khorshed near a phone-fax shop at 153/A Tejkunipara, some 150 yards off his house, when he was passing the area in a rickshaw.
"An old man ran into my shop and said three people were shooting a man and soon we saw a CNG autorickshaw," said Abdul Halim, a motor mechanic.
An employee of a tailoring shop said he heard some 10 gunshots, looked out the window and saw three youths boarding a CNG-run autorickshaw, leaving behind a man in a pool of blood.
Khorshed took a rickshaw in front of his rented house and was heading for the bus-stand to get to the judge's court, the police said.
No case has been filed and the police could arrest no one until 10:00 last night.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner SM Mizanur Rahman said they have no clue to the killing. He added that they could not speak to the slain's family, which could have given them a lead, as it was trying to come to terms with the death.
"The motive for the killing will be known soon," he told reporters yesterday. Huge numbers of police and Rab members were deployed in Tejkunipara.
PHONE THREATS
Police sources said anonymous callers had been asking Khorshed to step down from the sevenmember committee he headed, which was tasked to pick Kafrul Thana unit committee of the AL. The president and general secretary of the committee have already been selected.
The sources also said the callers had even warned him of dire consequences should he not quit the committee.
AL leader Advocate Sahara Khatun, under whose tutelage Khorshed practised law, said he used to conduct political cases of the AL in 22 police stations in the capital.
"He told me several times of having received unknown calls threatening him in the last one year. Even some of the callers asked him for illegal tolls," Advocate Sahara, also the president of Awami Ainjibi Parishad, told The Daily Star.
"There was no internal conflict and if there were any, I would have surely known," she added.
GOVT BLAMED
The AL general secretary has condemned the killing that he termed political and blamed it on the government-backed killers.
"The government is killing opposition leaders and activists across the country one after another," Jalil told reporters at the place of occurrence.
Leaders of Dhaka City AL staged demonstrations at around 1:30pm in front of Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) morgue when the body was brought there for autopsy.
The AL leaders demanded immediate arrest and exemplary punishment to the killers.
JANAZA HELD
The first Namaz-e-janaza of the slain AL leader was held at around 3:30pm on the Supreme Court (SC) premises. Chief Justice Syed JR Mudassir Husain, several judges of both divisions of the Supreme Court and members of the Supreme Court Bar Association attended it.
The second one was held on the premises of the Court of District and Sessions Judge, Dhaka at around 4:00pm, which hundreds of lawyers attended.
Senior AL leaders including Jalil and Tofail Ahmed, and a large number of party activists and people in general defied the heavy downpour and attended the third Namaz-e-Janaza in front of the AL headquarters on Bangabandhu Avenue around 5:30pm.
They chanted slogans holding ruling BNP men responsible for the killing.
A large number of law enforcers were deployed on Bangabandhu Avenue and its adjacent areas.
COURT BOYCOTT,RAGING PROTEST
Lawyers of the Supreme Court, Dhaka district judge's court and magistrate's courts yesterday boycotted the courts in protest at the killing of their colleague, reports our court correspondent.
Dhaka Bar Association (DBA) at 11:00am decided to boycott the courts and conveyed the decision to all the judges and magistrates of the Court of District and Sessions Judge, Dhaka, Court of Metropolitan Sessions Judge, Dhaka, Court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Dhaka and Court of District Magistrate, Dhaka.
The judges and magistrates of the courts stood down from their seats and adjourned proceedings of all the cases yesterday.
The DBA also held an impromptu protest rally at its auditorium where leaders of all parties protested the killing and demanded immediate arrest of the perpetrators.
The rally took six decisions that include raising demand for immediate arrest of the killers, boycotting courts, wearing black badges and hoisting black flags for three days, providing the killers, if arrested, with no legal aid and trying the killers in the Speedy Trial Tribunal.
Advocates Sarder Mohammad Suruzzaman, Syed Rezaur Rahman, Abdullah Mahmud Hassan, Fazlur Rahman Khan, Abdullah Abu, Mohammad Mohsin Miah, Sanaullah Miah, Kamrul Islam and Khorshed Alam spoke at the rally presided over by DBA President Abdus Sabur.
"The killing is a sequel to Monday's discussions in the parliament on lawyers' current movement. The discussions and the killing are inter-linked," Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) President Advocate Mahbubey Alam told an emergency meeting of the association that decided to boycott the court.
Following the decision of the SCBA, the lawyers boycotted the Supreme Court from 2:00pm yesterday and will also boycott the court today.
The members of the SCBA took out a protest procession holding black flags from its premises in the afternoon, which ended at the Central Shahid Minar.
The Jatiyatabadi Ainjibi Oikya Parishad also held a protest rally at the North Hall of the SCBA at about 1:30pm where speakers demanded immediate arrest of the killers.
Advocates Joynal Abedin, Golam Arshad, Golam Mohammad Chowdhury Alal, Golam Kibria, Barrister Mahbubuddin Khokan and other leaders spoke.
Sammilita Ainjibi Samannay Parishad, an organisation of pro-Awami League lawyers, has called for a countrywide court boycott from 2:00pm to 5:00pm on May 21.