Protesters lay siege to Police HQ for IGP’s removal
Staff Reporter :
A group of protesters on Thursday surrounded the Police Headquarters in Dhaka, demanding the removal, arrest, and trial of Inspector General of Police (IGP) Baharul Alam for his alleged involvement in the death of BNP leader Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu.
The demonstrators, operating under the banner “Shaheed Pintu Smriti Sangsad,” began their march from the Central Shaheed Minar around 3:30pm and advanced toward the Police Headquarters.
Police personnel had already set up barricades on both sides of the road to prevent them from moving closer.
Confirming the incident, Shahbagh Police Station Officer-in-Charge Md Moniruzzaman said, “When the procession reached the headquarters, police stopped them with barricades.” After a standoff lasting about 45 minutes, the protesters dispersed around 4:15pm.
This demonstration comes just days after a similar protest on 9 December, when the same organisation blocked the Shahbagh intersection pressing for identical demands.
IGP Baharul Alam’s name resurfaced in the recently published final report of the National Independent Investigation Commission, which was tasked with reinvestigating the 2009 massacre at the BDR (now BGB) Pilkhana headquarters.
Following the report’s release, Pintu’s family and the organisation renewed their demand for the IGP’s immediate removal and prosecution.
On 7 December, during a meeting, Pintu’s wife Nasima Akhter Kalpana – also a BNP Central Executive Committee member – alleged that her husband had been tortured and killed as part of a conspiracy to frame BNP leaders for the Pilkhana tragedy.
She said, “After the Pilkhana killings in 2009, the then government unlawfully detained Pintu from the High Court premises. The Detective Branch cordoned off the entire area and picked him up.
He was brutally tortured during lengthy remand periods. Even his condition during court appearances showed clear signs of abuse.
They tried to force him to make false confessions implicating party leaders, but he never agreed.”
Media reports state that Pintu, who had been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment over the 2009 BDR mutiny, died of cardiac arrest in Rajshahi in 2015.
Doctors at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital declared him dead after he was taken there from Rajshahi Central Jail, where he had been serving his sentence.