None arrested yet

Iqbal's younger brother Ashraf Bin Yakub filed a murder case at Kotwali Police Station yesterday.

Police recovered the body of the 32-year-old Iqbal from KB Abdur Sattar Road side, adjacent to the Goods Hill residence of Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, parliamentary affairs advisor to the prime minister, at around 11:45pm on Saturday.

Criminals bludgeoned the head of Iqbal, also the vice president of the Chittagong Shop Owners Federation, with heavy weapons before strangling him. Bruises were found on his head, inches over his left ear, and around his throat.

Iqbal was murdered when he was returning to his Chittagong residence on the night from Dhaka, family sources said. He went the capital on Thursday on business and party purposes, they said.

"My brother was almost certain to win nomination of the four-party alliance from the Chittagong- 4 constituency (Fatikchhari) in the next general elections and he had talks with IOJ chief Mufti Fazlul Haq Amini and BNP Secretary General Abdul Manna Bhuiyan in this regard, who gave him green signal," Ashraf told this correspondent. He blamed BNP-Jamaat goons for the murder of his brother.

A senior Chittagong unit IOJ leader, on condition of anonymity, yesterday expressed his surprise at the mysterious silence of the BNP leadership here on the murder of Iqbal, joint convener of four-party coalition in Chittagong.

"The BNP leaders kept mum and didn't issued even a single statement denouncing the murder of our leader," he said.