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Nurul Islam's Death in 2008 House Fire

Law enforcers, family still at loggerheads

Demand for reinvestigation, quizzing of political rivals falling on deaf ears

M Rahman
Over the last six years, the investigation into the fire that killed Gonotantri Party president Nurul Islam and his son had changed the hands of two law enforcement agencies but it remains virtually inconclusive with the law enforcers calling it an accident and the family claiming it to be an arson attack and demanding further inquiry and interrogation of Nurul's political rivals.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) was the first to launch a probe after the house fire
in 2008, and submitted the final report early last year following five years of work. Then the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) started further inquiry last June and submitted its report last December.
Both the agencies drew the same conclusion that the fire was an accident because they did not find any incendiary material in the ashes and water collected from the scene.
The Detective Branch of police now is carrying out further probe after Nurul's family objected to the findings of the two agencies.
The family alleged that both CID and Rab counted out the Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR)'s chemical report that found existence of Osmic compound and arsenic in the collected ashes and water.
Heated Osmic compounds and arsenic release toxic fumes that directly attack the respiratory system and cause quick death, according to experts. Osmium is not used in home appliances while arsenic is a component of pesticides and rodenticides, they said. The CID received the BCSIR report in October 2011 but did not consider it.
Asked, CID's Assistant Superintendent of Police Shahinur Bari, the then investigation officer, told The Daily Star, "We...tested those (ashes and water) in the CID laboratory, but it didn't reveal the existence of any explosive compound."
On December 3, 2008, a fire engulfed Nurul's Lalmatia house in the capital and killed his son Tamohar Islam on the spot and left the politician severely injured. Nurul died 36 hours later.
The postmortem report did not say Nurul died from toxic fume inhalation, said his daughter Moutushi. She however doubted the findings and added that autopsy was not conducted onTamoharatall.
Just a few days before the fire Nurul Islam had submitted his nomination papers to contest from Noakhali-1 constituency in the 2008
general elections with the Awami League ucket.
The family said the investigators never took their suspicions into account, as they were yet to arrest and interrogate Nurul's political rivals.
“We always suspected my father’s political rivals but neither CID nor Rab did weigh up our suspicions," said Moutushi. She declined to name the suspects on security grounds.
Asked why the CI D did not arrest or interrogate the people suspected by the family, Shahinur Bari said, "If we could ascertain that the fire was an act of arson, we would make arrests."
DB Additional Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Mahfuzul Islam, who is now monitoring the investigation, said, "We talked to Rubi Rahman (Nurul's widow) and several others but we are yet to find anything beyond the findings of the CID and Rab."
He, however, said they were continuing the inquiry.