Witnesses name ex-state minister Alamgir Kabir too as militant patron

Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader and ex-BNP state minister for housing and public works Alamgir Kabir was named as a militant-patron in separate judicial statements by six witnesses of three cases of militants' atrocities before a court in Naogaon district.

Swapna Chodhury, Abdul Hakim and Abdul Matin Mondol – three witnesses in the case filed by torture victim Golam Mostafa Chowdhury of Atrai upazila provided statements under Section 164 before the court of first class magistrate Shafikul Islam in Naogaon on Sunday.

Other witnesses who provided statements are -- Jamsed Chowkidar and Sujan in the case of Abdul Bari and Shamsur Rahman in the case of Amin Uddin Sardar of the Upazila.

The witnesses also named former post and telecommunications minister Barrister Aminul Haque, Ex-land affairs deputy minister Ruhul Kuddus Talukhdar Dulu, and former lawmaker Nadim Mostafa as godfathers of the militants, he said.

Kabir was first to have been lapelled in allegations of aiding and abetting militants of Jama'atul Mujahidin, Bangladesh. Earlier, Aminul, Dulu and Nadim were accused in three cases in Rajshahi and Naogaon.

Kabir was accused in the statements, for masterminding tortures, extortion, collecting ransom and damaging of properties by militants, said a senior police official quoting the statements.

The police said, the three cases were filed with a court on December 31, 2006 and sent to Atrai police station for investigation.

Investigations into the cases were almost stalled for lack of witnesses so far.

Golam Mostafa Chodhury, a torture victim of Shahebganj in his case alleged that Bangla Bhai's cadres abducted him and tortured him at Hamirkutsa camp at the house of Ramjan Kaya, a war collaborator of 1971.

He was later released when his wife Swapna Chowdhury paid Tk 50,000 ransom going at the torture camp.

Torture victims Abdul Bari of Jagdam village and Amin Uddin Sardar too, in two other cases, told of their sufferings and extortion by militants.