Five held in Rangpur over Konio murder

Police on Saturday arrested five persons from different areas of Rangpur city and Kawnia upazila over the murder of a Japanese national at Alutari in Kawnia upazila. Masked assailants gunned down Hoshi Konio, 66, at Alutari village, five kilometres off the northern divisional headquarters, around 10:15am on Saturday when he was travelling to a farm by a rickshaw.
After the murder, police detained Hoshi Konio's housemaster Zakaria Haque Bala, 58, Bala's brother-in-law and Konio's business partner Hira, 48, rickshawpuller Monnaf Ali, Murad Hossain, a resident of the crime scene area, and another person.
Police said, Konio was a tenant at Bala’s house at Munshipara and Murad, son of Alutari village’s Khoka Mia, lives in a house near to the murder spot. Murad and Ali were detained for questioning right after the murder, Rangpur’s Superintendent of Police (SP) Abdur Razzak told bdnews24.com. He said Bala and Hira were picked up from their respective homes on Saturday afternoon. Hira is a resident of Nurpur.
Sources at Kawnia Police Station said four of the detainees were grilled at the police station for any information related to Konio’s murder.

BSS adds, Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Kawnia Police Station Rezaul Karim said the miscreants had been waiting on the spot and opened gunshots at Konio around 10:15am when he was crossing the area by rickshaw towards his agriculture farm at Katu Alutari for grass cultivation. The killers fled the scene immediately after the incident, police said.
Sixty-six-year-old Konio was critically injured when the local people rushed him to Rangpur Medical College Hospital (RMCH) where the attending doctor declared him dead.
"Body of Konio has been kept at the mortuary of RMCH," said in-charge of Dhap Police Camp Sub-inspector (SI) Golam Kibria, who has been doing duty there since arrival of the body.
Konio had been living as a paying guest at the house of Zakaria Haque Bala at Munshipara in Rangpur city for last few months and he used to visit his grass farm in the morning by rickshaw daily.
Deputy Commissioner Md. Rahat Anwar, Commanding Officer (CO) of RAB-13 Lt Colonel Kishmot Hayat, Superintended of Police Abdur Razzaque, Additional Superintendent of Police Joynal Abedin, Additional District Magistrate Priyosindhu Talukder and intelligence personnel have visited the spot.
Police as well as members of other law-enforcement agencies have already engaged their allout efforts for nabbing the culprits behind the killing. They have set up a dozen of special checkposts throughout the city, on its outskirts and in the district as a whole and in the adjoining districts with a view to nabbing the perpetrators.
- biplab