A Bangladesh court today ordered five personnel of the elite Rapid Action Battalion to be remanded in police custody for eight days after they were arrested for their alleged involvement in the sensational killing of seven people in April.
"The magistrate ordered them to be quizzed in custody for eight days as police produced them in a court," an official at suburban Narayanganj court told reporters.
However, there was no comment from police on the arrests of the five junior RAB personnel and their alleged role in the gruesome murder after three were arrested soon after the incident.
The three -- an army lieutenant colonel, a major and a navy lieutenant commander - earlier confessed to their involvement before a magistrate after weeks of questioning in police custody after authorities sacked them from service.
Today's development came as the mass circulation Samokal newspaper said RAB, a special police unit also incorporating military and paramilitary personnel, submitted a report to a high level government committee saying an internal probe found 22 members of the elite force were involved in the murders of the seven.
The assailants kidnapped seven people including a city councillor and a lawyer from the suburban river port city on April 27 and their nearly decomposed bodies were recovered from the Shitalakya River.
Slain councillor Nazrul Islam's relatives earlier had alleged that his fellow councillor Nur Hossain had bribed the RAB officials to eliminate him in exchange of Taka 6 crore (over USD 76000).
Islam was abducted along with his four aides including his driver while senior lawyer Chandan Sarker and his driver were kidnapped after they left the court area in Narayanganj.
Sarkar was apparently trying to follow the abductors in his own car. Several witnesses including ordinary passersby later testified before a high level investigation committee as well as media that they saw the victims were being dragged into RAB cars while they were being kidnapped.
Immediately after the incident Hossain fled the country to take refuge in India but the West Bengal police tracked him down while he is now in a jail there on charges of intrusion while Bangladesh asked New Delhi for his return to face justice.
Bangladesh's foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali last month told parliament that India agreed to return Hossain and the legal process was underway for his extradition.
Hossain is likely to be the first Bangladeshi to be deported from India since the signing of the extradition act between the two countries in December 2013.
