Factory worker Maruf shot dead during SRB raid in Dhaka's Dhalpur; whose bullet killed him remains unanswered

'Cook quickly, I'm very hungry. I'm coming' — with those words to his wife Mim Akter Runa, factory worker Maruf, also known as Dukhu Mia, stepped out of his home. A short while later came the news that he had been shot. He never returned home. Maruf was shot dead on Tuesday evening in Dhalpur, in the capital's Jatrabari area, while members of the Special Response Battalion (SRB) were conducting an anti-drug operation there.

Although there was an exchange of gunfire during the operation and a young man died, whose weapon fired the fatal bullet remains a mystery. SRB officials say their members fired four blank shots into the air in self-defence. Relatives say Maruf went outside after hearing gunshots to see what was happening and was shot while watching the 'trouble' between two sides from a distance; they cannot say who fired the shot.

The incident took place in the City Palli area beside the Dhalpur Wasa gate, known locally as Outfall and Telegu Colony. The lanes inside are narrow and broken — on some, two people can barely pass side by side — and the area has several half-built and abandoned buildings surrounded by darkness and cover. Mallik Ahsan Uddin Sami, deputy commissioner of the Wari Division, said it is difficult to enter the area by vehicle and many places must be reached on foot; an abandoned four-storey building there has long been used by drug addicts.

Md Asaduzzaman, commander of SRB-10, said a large drug-dealing syndicate operates in that part of Dhalpur and intelligence gathering had been under way there beforehand. On Tuesday evening a four-member team in plain clothes went to the area on two motorcycles. According to him, the team had initially gone to gather information or conduct reconnaissance, but on seeing narcotics there they tried to detain four people. He said 245 yaba tablets and 139 packets of heroin were found at the scene.

The commander claimed that of the four detained, three had been handcuffed. The detainees then began shouting, drawing a large crowd that attacked the SRB members. According to him, the attackers fired first; the members were then surrounded and beaten, their mobile phones and wallets were snatched, and at one point an attempt was made to snatch the pistols of two members. Four shots were then fired in self-defence, he said. He claimed six to eight shots were also heard from the attackers' side, and that gunshots were heard even as the members were leaving the scene. How many bullet casings were recovered at the scene could not be independently verified.

Asked whether Maruf was killed by a bullet fired by his members, the SRB-10 commander said the members fired into the air and the other side also opened fire, so it is not possible to say without an investigation which bullet killed Maruf. An SRB spokesperson gave the same account: 'A drug operation took place and our members were attacked there. They fired blank shots to save their lives and withdrew. What casualties occurred will come out in the investigation.'

Maruf was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where, according to the case statement, doctors declared him dead at 7:50 pm. His mother Selina Begum said her son was shot in the neck. The statement records a bullet wound to the right shoulder, while police officials describe a bullet trajectory from the neck down through the body. The autopsy and ballistic test results have therefore become crucial to determining from which direction the shot came.

Maruf's father Abdur Rashid has died; his mother Selina Begum works in people's homes as a domestic worker. Maruf was the youngest of three sons and a daughter. He worked at a factory making silver or aluminium utensils and returned home around 5 pm every day; the household ran on his income and his mother's earnings. On Tuesday he went to work as usual in the morning, came home around five, changed his clothes, spent some time with friends, then returned home again — before stepping out after telling his wife to cook.

Maruf and Mim were married about a year and four months ago and have no children. Mim said her husband never used drugs and had no quarrel with anyone. Having lost him, she asks: 'Will I not get justice for my husband's murder?' Selina Begum said her youngest son had no previous case against him and that everyone in the area knew him as a good boy. Speaking of her son, she said: 'My golden boy has died.'

Immediately after the incident, several news outlets reported that Maruf had been killed by miscreants' bullets. But once it emerged that a law-enforcement operation was under way at the time, questions arose about his death. The human rights organisation Human Rights Support Society (HRSS) has demanded an independent investigation. In a statement, its executive director Ijazul Islam said there are inconsistencies in the accounts of the officials concerned about what happened during the operation: on one hand blank shots were said to have been fired in self-defence, while the organisation's inquiry found that sending a team to the area from an SRB camp was denied. According to the organisation, eyewitness accounts mention brickbats being thrown while three people were being handcuffed and two SRB members firing shots; an investigation independent of the force concerned is needed to resolve these inconsistencies.

Questions have also been raised about the case statement. Its copy names Selina Begum as the complainant, accompanied to the police station by her elder son Md Ali Hossain Hawlader. The statement says that around 7 pm on Tuesday, as they reached the front of the abandoned building at 14 Outfall Staff Quarters, gunfire began, and Maruf was shot in the right shoulder while fleeing. The complainant learned from local people that drug traders and miscreants fired at the SRB and that SRB members fired blank shots into the air to repel them — in other words, the statement attributes Maruf's death to the drug traders' bullets.

Selina Begum, however, says she went to the police station around noon on Wednesday to file a case and was made to wait until 4 pm. A thumbprint was then taken from her on a paper whose contents she did not know. She was told a case would be filed later, and as of Thursday she had not been informed whether a case had in fact been filed. The Wari Division deputy commissioner, meanwhile, said three cases have been filed over the incident — one for murder, one concerning narcotics, and one over the attack on law-enforcement members — and that the murder case is being investigated separately rather than together with the other two.

Even as questions swirl over Maruf's death, fresh arrests have begun in Dhalpur City Palli, spreading fear among residents, relatives allege. His sister Roksana Akter said force members have been raiding the area since the incident and many people are being detained on drug-dealing allegations, including, she alleged, ordinary working people. She said: 'They have finished my brother. Now they are oppressing us too, and making us leave the area. Where will we go?'

According to the Wari Division deputy commissioner, a large operation has since been conducted there with police joined by SRB members; about 40 people have been detained and some may be released after verification. He added that police had already had a plan to evict City Palli, where drug-dealing allegations are longstanding; a drive to evict the settlement had been initiated and announcements made by loudspeaker, but the eviction did not proceed once the question of residents' rehabilitation came up. He said the matter was discussed with local political representatives and the city corporation authorities, and the city corporation had mentioned a project to build 120 houses there. Saying the stance on eviction has hardened after the attack on SRB members, he said: 'Our next move is, we will evict the settlement.'