Section within Muhammad Yunus government plotted Osman Hadi's killing to derail elections, says brother

Dhaka: Bangladesh's slain radical leader Sharif Osman Hadi's brother has alleged that a section within the interim government of Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus plotted the killing to derail the upcoming general election.

Hours after his claim, Md Khuda Baksh Chowdhury, Special Assistant (Ministry of Home Affairs) to the Chief Adviser, resigned from the position.

"It is you who got Osman Hadi killed, and now you are trying to foil the election by using this as an issue. Those who are in power when Osman Hadi was killed, you won't be able to evade the responsibility," Hadi's brother Omar Hadi told a protest rally in the capital staged by Inqilab Mancha on Tuesday.

Omar said that the government must "immediately expose the entire group involved" in his brother's killing to the nation. He warned, "Otherwise, you will be forced to flee the country," referencing the fate of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League regime.

Hadi, a staunch critic of India alongside the Awami League, was one of the leaders of last year’s violent student-led street protest dubbed the July Uprising that toppled the Hasina-led government and later floated the Inqilab Mancha.

The Cabinet Division issued a notification on Wednesday night, saying the President has accepted the resignation of Chowdhury, a former police chief.

“Md Khuda Baksh Chowdhury, special assistant (Ministry of Home Affairs) to the chief adviser, has resigned from his post. The president has accepted his resignation,” an official statement said.

Hadi, a candidate for the scheduled parliamentary election in February, was shot in the head by masked gunmen on December 12 in Dhaka. Six days later, he died at a Singapore hospital.

Omar alleged that a section of the government got his brother killed at the direction of an “agency or country”.

He said Hadi wanted the national election to be held by February and asked authorities not to disrupt the election environment.

The Inqilab Mancha has demanded the immediate resignation of Home Adviser Lt Gen (retd.) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, Law Adviser Asif Nazrul and Khoda Baksh Chowdhury, holding them accountable for the murder.

The law adviser has promised to hold the trial in Bangladesh’s Speedy Trial Tribunal, which requires hearings to be completed in 90 days.

 After Hadi’s death, mobs in Dhaka staged a mayhem, setting alight the main offices of mass circulation Prothom Alo and Daily Star newspaper, two progressive cultural groups Chhayanat and Udichi Shilpi Goshthi in Dhaka. A Hindu factory worker was lynched by a mob in central Mymensingh.