Local leaders and police have to bear the responsibility for the deaths of six students killed in mob-beating in Aminbazar, said a section of villagers of Baradeshi yesterday.
Another section however believes the students were "robbers" and the mob "consciously" killed them.
They told this to reporters when a four-member high-powered investigation team led by a deputy inspector general of police, visited Keblarchar, the place of occurrence.
The reporters were accompanying the investigation team.
The investigation team recorded statements of the family members of three slain students and lone survivor Al-Amin.
The mob in the name of resisting robbers beat up the six students to death in the early hours of July 18, which was also the night of Shab-e-Barat.
"Several robbers-resistance teams were formed with the consent of both police and local leaders to prevent robbery spree in the locality. The teams have been vigilant at nights for about one month," a villager told The Daily Star asking not to be identified.
A number of other villagers echoed him.
They said the outraged villagers took the law in their own hands and killed the students, as the law enforcers failed to take action against repeated incidents of robbery.
Responding to newspersons' question as to alleged involvement of law enforcers in the incident, Deputy Inspector General of Police Mohammad Amir Uddin said they will probe everything about it.
Mahbubur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Savar police, said they were aware of robberies in the locality and a team was on patrol that night. But the angry villagers killed the six students before police reached the scene.
The investigation team interviewed some villagers including Abdul Malek who filed a robbery case against the victims.
Khabir Bepari, father of Al-Amin, said the team heard the incident from his son for two and a half hours and took both of their signatures.
The victims' families appealed to the team for immediate withdrawal of the robbery charges against the six slain students and Al-Amin.
The slain students were Towhidur Rahman Palash, Kamruzzaman Kanto, Shams Rahim Shamam, Sitaf Jabi Munif, Ibrahim Khalil and Tipu Sultan.
Abdul Kader Suraj, disabled father of Kanto, leaning on the shoulders of his relatives arrived on the scene where his son was killed. He broke into tears seeing the ground where his son was lying dead, and demanded justice for the deaths of his son and his friends.
Families of some other victims also went to the scene for the first time along with the investigation team, as they dared not to go there alone.
Over two hundred villagers including women gathered around the investigation team and protested various news reports published on the issue, and claimed that the killed youths were robbers.
Savar police filed a murder case against around 600 unnamed villagers in this connection and arrested two accused -- Sanwar Hossain and Md Selim of Baradeshi -- on Saturday.
The Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate allowed police a two-day remand yesterday to interrogate the arrested two.
Source : The Daily Star
