Kolkata, March 14 – Sleuths of the West Bengal Police's Special Task Force (STF) arrested an individual on Saturday, who is alleged to have helped two killers of Bangladeshi radical group Inqilab Moncho spokesperson Sharif Osman Hadi escape to West Bengal from Bangladesh after the murder in December last year.
The individual, identified as Philip Sangma, was arrested by the STF from the Santipur Bypass area in the Nadia district of West Bengal, a senior state police official said.
To recall, on March 8, the STF had arrested the two killers of Hadi – Rahul alias Faisal Karum Masud and Alamgir Hossain – who had escaped to West Bengal from Bangladesh after the assassination in December last year.
They were arrested from a village near the India-Bangladesh border under the Bangaon sub-division in Nadia district.
During questioning, Rahul and Alamgir informed the investigating officials that they had been helped to cross the border illegally and escape to West Bengal from Bangladesh by Sangma in exchange for a hefty payment.
State police officials said that based on information received from their sources, the STF sleuths arrested Sangma from the Santipur Bypass area in Nadia district on Saturday.
“During interrogation, Sangma admitted that he helped people cross the Halurghat border in Bangladesh and the Dalupara border in Meghalaya illegally in exchange for money. Similarly, he helped the two killers of Hadi enter West Bengal illegally from Bangladesh,” the police official said.
Sangma was produced before a district court on Saturday, which remanded him to police custody.
Hadi was shot in Dhaka in December last year. The young Bangladeshi leader later died at a hospital in Singapore.
Bangladesh witnessed widespread unrest following Hadi's death. The chargesheet filed by the Dhaka Metropolitan Detective Branch (DB) in the murder case identified Faisal and Alamgir as the main accused.