No headway even after 2yrs
Police failed to identify the killers even two years after Santal student leader Bablu Hembrom was killed in Tanore upazila of Rajshahi.
In an interview with The Daily Star at their Moinpur village residence, the victim's parents revealed that the murder was committed for money that they kept at home after selling land for spending for their son's job.
Bablu's parents Moheswar Hembrom and Shanti Tudu said the killers had sent letters prior to the murder to three Santal families threatening them with death and demanded Tk 1.5 lakh to Tk 3 lakh as extortion.
Moheswar and Shanti have been spending nights in another house since unknown persons banged on their door twice in a month after the murder.
Bablu, 25, a member of the central unit of Santal Students Union and a final year sociology student at Rajshahi Government College, was found dead with his throat slit inside his room early hours on January 9, 2015.
“This hurts me a lot as we could not do anything in the case in so many days,” said Inspector Nazrul Islam of Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI).
Nazrul, the fourth investigator of the case, said police arrested five people, and collected their DNA samples.
“We want to see if the DNA samples match those collected from the scene and the letters,” he said, adding that the victim's father, the lone eyewitness, was not helping them.
Of the arrestees -- Najim Uddin, 36, of Pakri village; Tajimul Haque, 55, of Moinpur -- are on bail while Torikul Islam, 38, Rakibul Islam Sohel, 38, and Mofij Uddin, 50, of Moinpur, in jail.
Moheswar had a happy family based on agriculture. He married off his only daughter years ago and was dreaming that Bablu, who returned home after attending his final examinations, will handle the family. Bablu's marriage was also fixed.
“I don't know who was so zealous wanted that I lost everything overnight,” said Moheswar.
Their traditional clay home was built around a spacious courtyard. The parents lived in a room on the West while Bablu in an Eastern room near the main gate.
On that fateful night, the parents went to bed at 9:30pm. Bablu talked to his fiancée for hours, said police examining his cellphone.
After midnight, Moheswar got up from bed hearing “an unusual scream”. He got frightened as he remembered the letters.
He and two of his neighbours -- Montu Soren and Sunil Majhi -- got similar letters reading that 48 people from 23 villages formed an extortion gang, and if they were not paid their demanded money, they would be killed.
Sunil and Montu said they filed general diaries with Tanore Police Station, but Moheswar did not do so due to fear.
According to Moheswar, he went out of house at that night and saw around nine masked people wearing black clothes and of them three were carrying daggers in their hands.
“What did we tell you about the money? Where is it?” one of the gangsters had asked Moheswar.
Moheswar sold his two bighas of land at Tk 8 lakh, which he gave them away to save their lives.
Taking the money, the criminals dragged Moheswar to Bablu's room and went away.
In the dark, Moheswar discovered Bablu's body in a pool of blood.
“Every sunset, we leave home and come back in the morning. We had only tears to shed,” wept Bablu's mother.
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