Two including main accused of attack on Ghoraghat UNO arrested

Two persons have been arrested in connection with criminal attack on Ghoraghat Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Wahida in Dinajpur.

Members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and police in a joint drive arrested them from Kaliganj in Hili area of Dinajpur district early Friday.

The arrestees were identified as Asadul Haque, 35, son of Amzad Hossain of Osmanpur in the upazila and Jahangir Alam.

The law enforcers arrested them analysing CCTV footage of the residence of the UNO.

Tipped off, a team of police from Hakimpur, Birampur and Ghoraghat police stations, and RAb members conducted a joint drive in the area around 4:50 am and arrested Asadul, said Wahid Ferdous, officer-in-charge of Hakimpur Police Station.

Later, he was taken to Rab office in Rangpur district.

RAB also arrested Jahangir Alam in another drive in the district.

Earlier, the victim's elder brother Sheikh Farid Uddin filed a case at around 11:30 pm on Thursday against four to five unknown persons with Ghoraghat Police Station over the incident.

The duo broke into the house early hours of Thursday and one of them was wearing PPE, said Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Rangpur Range Devdas Bhattacharjee.

According to the case statement, "A group of miscreants entered the government quarter of UNO through ventilator with a ladder from 1:05 am to 4:25 am on Thursday. They found UNO Wahida Khanam awake and wanted to know where the keys of cupboard and other valuable things were. They hit her with hammers on different parts of the body including head, as Wahida denied. Her father came to her room after hearing Wahida screaming. Then the miscreants attacked him too."
 
"When both of them became unconscious due to bloody injuries, the miscreants thought they were dead and fled the spot. Wahida's father regained consciousness at around 6:30 am and started shouting from inside. Then night guard Nazim Hossain Palash came and saw the door to the stairwell of the house is locked from inside. He entered the house through the bathroom's ventilator with a ladder," the statement added.

Soon after the incident, Police, RAB and intelligence agencies started massive search for the attackers.

They collected CCTV footage and came to the conclusion that two persons entered the house and carried out the attack.

Wahida Khanam, Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) of Ghoraghat, was seriously injured in an attack by miscreants at her home on the Upazila Parishad premises early Thursday.

Her father was also injured in the gruesome attack. They were taken to Rangpur Medical College and Hospital.

Later, the UNO was airlifted from Rangpur to Dhaka by a Bangladesh Air Force MI-171SH helicopter.

She was admitted to the National Institute of Neurosciences & Hospital, Dhaka.