Salehi's property at RU, home yet to be attached

Star National Desk

A court order for attachment of property of Rajshahi University Chhatra Shibir President Mahbubul Alam Shalehi has not reached Ulipur police in Kurigram district.

Police also did not attach Salehi's moveable property at RU, 10 days into the order.

Salehi, the key suspect in the murder of Rajshahi University teachers Prof S Taher Ahmed, hails from Thethrai village in Ulipur.

Officer-in-of-Charge of Ulipur police station AKM Khalkequ-zzaman told out Rangpur Correspondent that he heard about a court order for attachment of Salehi's property.

"But we are yet to receive it", he said. We will start action as soon as we get the order.

Following an appeal by Rajshahi police on February 26, a Metropolitan Magistrate court on March 5 ordered attachment of Shalehi's movable property at Rajshahi University and his village home in Kurigram.

Some villagers in Thethrai said Salehi was not seen there since news about Dr. Murder spread in the area.

Our Staff Correspondent in Rajshahi reported yesterday that police were yet to attach Salehi's property at Rajshahi University.

Salehi stayed at Dr. Sham-suzzoha Hall, a Shibir stronghold, though officially he was a resident of Moder Box Hall.

Police said they did not go to Dr. Shamsuzzoha Hall to attach Salehi's property there.

The home ministry in an order recently asked Rajshahi police to arrest Shalehi following a police report that his arrest is necessary to understand the real motive behind the murder.

The police report also said Shalehi's arrest is important to find out details about involvement of others. Besides, the revolver used in the murder belonged to Shalehi, police said earlier.

Local police also believe that Shalehi's arrest may help investigation into the earlier murder of Prof Muhammad Yunus of Rajshahi University as there were 'similarities between the two killings'.

However, local Bangla daily 'Sunshine' in its March 10 issue published a joint statement of Shalehi and RU Shibir general secretary Noor Muhammad, hailing the victory of Jamaat-backed White Panel in RU Teachers' Association election.

A large number of Jamaat-Shibir leaders and workers including Rajshahi city Jamaat Ameer Ataur Rahman and Salehi appeared at a public gathering at Sheheb Bazar on February 10 after Shalehi was declared wanted by police.

At the gathering, they threw a challenge to police to arrest Salehi if they dare.

"It is now clear that they (Jamaat-Shibir) are hiding him (Salehi). He was at the meeting and he is with them now and doing party activities", said a police official.

"We could not arrest him from the meeting as he fled with the help of a top political leader. We are frantically searching for him since then", the police official said in reply to a question.

Sources on RU campus said Jamaat-Shibir has created chaos at the university to save Shalehi, forcing authorities to deploy a huge number of police.

Prof Taher was killed on February 1 and his body was recovered from a sewer behind his house on February 2. Three arrested killers -- Jahangir, Abdus Salam and Nazmul-- confessed during interrogation that they along with Taher's collegue Prof Mia Muhammad Mohiuddin and Shalehi killed him.

Arrested Mohiuddin was denied bail on Tuesday.