A cell phone, used by the ‘missing’ security guard of murdered journalist couple, Sagar and Runi’s residence, was ‘found’ on Sunday.
Elite crime busters the Rapid Action Battalion recovered the mobile set from the brother of a police officer.
The cell-phone was found when the battalion arrested Moslem Uddin, brother of detective police assistant commissioner Md Solaiman, from the Tejgaon rail station road area in the morning.
It is a mystery how Moslem got his hands on the set that the police had seized from the guard Humayun Kabir during their investigation of the journalists’ murder.
The unsolved double murder has recently been classified as ‘sensational’ and handed over to RAB from the police.
The recovery comes almost a month after the elite crime fighting unit, a hybrid of defence and police personnel, took charge of the investigation from the police who failed to make any headway with the investigation in the two months since the murder.
RAB took charge of the investigation on April 18, after over three months since the couple was killed inside their Razabazar residence on February 11.
When questioned about how Moslem had gotten the phone, the police officer Solaiman said, ‘The cell-phone set was ‘mistakenly’ not handed over along with other things connected with the killing to RAB.’
The police officer, apparently desperate to find an acceptable excuse, then contradicted the previous statement saying that the cell-phone set was not an evidence of the investigation.
However, there were no comments on why the police had not returned the cell-phone to the guard after questioning and why they had retained the phone although it is not an evidence for the investigation.
The police detective admitted that the set had been with him for about three months and his brother borrowed it from him after his (Moslem) own set had gone out of order recently. He said he got his brother released from RAB in the afternoon.
According to Solaiman, he questioned Humayun as part of a shadow investigation he was conducting side by side the main investigation by Inspector Rabiul Islam.
‘Although Humayun was released as he could not give any information regarding the killing, his cell phone was not returned,’ Solaiman added.
RAB-2 second-in-command Major Saiful Islam, who led the team that arrested Moslem, said they took the matter seriously and was investigating it.
According to investigators, they have been looking for the guard Humayun since it was imperative for a proper investigation.
But Humayun has not been found yet and RAB had been trying to trace him by tracking down the position of his cell-phone. Investigators found that the set was using a different SIM card that led to the capture of Moslem.
RAB spokesman M Sohael said they were investigating the case with the utmost priority.
RAB is conducting the investigation following a High Court order. Sagar Sarwar was the news editor of Masranga Television while his wife Meherun Runi was a senior correspondent of ATN Bangla.