Tuhin Murder: A village afflicted by malice, rivalries

While entering the Kejaura village in Sunamganj’s Derai upazila, this correspondent noticed some scattered bricks lying on a road and a burflower (Kadam) tree nearby.

One would hardly find anything disturbing in the neighbourhood until he or she is informed that the bricks were put there to identify the bloodstained spot where five-year-old Tuhin Miah was brutally murdered on the night of October 13, and that his body found hanging from the burflower tree. 

The bloodstains were washed away days ago, but the brutality the child faced is still haunting people across the country.

Police claim that the child was killed by his father, uncles and cousins to implicate their rivals came as another shocker.

But this is not the first time the villagers have witnessed a murder for implicating rivals.

At least two people were killed in similar incidents in the last 17 years and numerous other attempts were made to incriminate rivals in the village of 400 families.

The village, located in the eastern side of Kaliakota Haor, has long been experiencing a rivalry between the followers of former union parishad member Anwar Hossain and the family members of Abdul Mosobbir, uncle of Tuhin.

Multiple arbitration attempts were taken to resolve the dispute, but all those attempts failed due to some untoward incidents.

Back in June 2002, a man named Mujibur Rahman of nearby Madhupur village was killed in Kejaura village. The victim’s father filed a case accusing Anwar Hossain, Tuhin’s father Abdul Basir and 14 others.

The murder took place on June 8, just a day before an arbitration between the two groups was scheduled to take place.

Later, the arbitration was called off.

In 2010, Jobor Ali, a relative of Anwar Hossain, died of a heart attack, but family members of the deceased dumped the body in a nearby swamp to implicate their rivals.

Jobor’s wife filed a murder case against some of their family rivals, but police found that Jobor died naturally. The case ended with the submission of a police report, said the lawenforcers.

In 2015, when the rivalry between Anwar Hossain and Abdul Mosobbir reached a new peak over grabbing government lands and waterbodies, several respected people in the upazila, including late parliamentarian Suranjit Sen Gupta, called for an arbitration between the two groups.

The arbitration was scheduled for October 9. And again a day before the arbitration, a woman of Mosobbir’s family was killed.

Nilufa Begum, wife of Mosobbir’s nephew Gias Uddin, was hacked on a village road. She died at Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College two days later.

Nilufa’s father filed a case accusing Anwar Hossain, Salatul Miah, Suleman Miah and 13 others and the case is still to be disposed of.

There are allegations that Gias Uddin had a quarrel with his wife and hacked her to death in an attempt to incriminate the rivals, according to locals.

Recently, another attempt to settle the rivalry was taken and the arbitration was supposed to take place last week. But Tuhin was brutally murdered right before the arbitration.

Two knives, which were pierced deep inside Tuhin’s stomach, had the names of Suleman and Salatul written on their grips.

Talking to The Daily Star on Friday afternoon, Anwar, Suleman and Salatul claimed that Mosobbir tried to frame them once again by writing down their names on the grips of the knives.

Harendra Biswas, a member of the village police, said, “None of the groups ever wanted to reconcile as they don’t want to give up their dominance in the village.

“Establishing control over the committees for fishing in the local water bodies has been the main reason of their dispute for the last several years.”

After Tuhin’s murder, police arrested his father Abdul Basir, uncles Abdul Mosobbir, Jamshed Ali, Nasir Miah and cousin Mohammad Shahriar on October 14.

The next day, Nasir and Shahriar confessed before a Sunamganj court stating that Tuhin was carried out of home by his father before his killing.

Basir, Mosobbir and Jamshed were placed on a three-day remand that day and sent to Sunamganj Jail on Friday after the remand.

Mijanur Rahman, acting superintendent of police in Sunamganj, said, “We have found more details of the murder after the remand of the victim’s father and two uncles.

“We are still investigating the matter and the charge sheet will be submitted very soon.”