The family of Shumon Zahid, son of martyred intellectual Selina Parvin, claims his death to be a case of homicide.
His slit-throat body was recovered Thursday morning by the Railway Police (GRP) from near the rail tracks in capital’s Khilgaon area.
Police suspect it to be an accident. “The head has been detached. Our initial assessment says he was run over by train,” Railway Police OC Yasin Faruq told Bangla Tribune.
Khilgaon locals reported the GRP of the body around 10am, said Sub Inspector Anwar Hossain.
“We found the body very close to the rail tracks and suspect he was run over by a train,” he told Bangla Tribune.
The 52-year-old was one of the witnesses in a war crimes case filed in connection to the killing of intellectuals in 1971.
His mother journalist and poet Selina Parvin was taken away from her Dhaka home on Dec 14 by the vigilante militia Al-Badr.
Zahid’s brother-in-law ATM Emdadul Haque Bulbul said, “It’s a pre-planned murder. He was called by someone before leaving his home in Shahjahanpur around 9:30am. Soon after it was reported he has been found dead.
Zahid testified against Al Badr leaders Ashrafuzzaman Khan and Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, who have been sentenced to death by the war crimes tribunal.
The two have been found guilty of abducting, torturing and murdering nine Dhaka University teachers, six journalists and three doctors during the war.
Ashrafuzzman is said to be now living in the US and Mueen-Uddin in the UK.
Speaking to Bangla Tribune, Bulbul claimed that Zahid had been receiving threats. “He has been threatened several times over the last two years. So we suspect it to be a murder.”