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Former Narayanganj mayor Salina Hayat Ivy has been charged with the shooting death of a garment worker during the Anti-discrimination Student Movement in Narayanganj.
Earlier, more than two dozen murder cases were filed in Narayanganj but for the first time, she has been accused in any case.
Nazmul Haque, brother of deceased garment worker Minarul Islam, initiated the case with Siddhirganj Police Station on Tuesday, said the station’s chief Abu Bakar Siddique.
Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader has been named the key suspect in the case, alongside 132 others and 200-300 unidentified suspects, bdnews24.com reports.
Ivy was first elected as chairman of Narayanganj municipality in 2003 during the BNP-led coalition government. In 2011, she was elected as the first female mayor of Narayanganj City Corporation, defeating Awami League-backed candidate Shamim Osman by more than one million votes.
On August 19, the interim government removed Ivy, who had been elected city mayor for three consecutive terms, in the string of changes in other city corporations as well after the ouster of the Awami League government in the mass uprising.
After the AL government fell, the houses of leaders and activists of the party and its associate organisations were attacked, vandalised and looted, but Ivy, known as a ‘clean politician’ did not suffer any such attack.
However, Ivy's younger brother and Jubo League leader Ahammad Ali Reza has also been named in the case. He has been named in at least two other cases.
In her comment on the lawsuit, Ivy said: “I have done politics for people all my life, but never practised politically-affiliated partisan. My father never did bad politics. I have always worked for people’s welfare following his ideals.
"But now my younger brother and I are victims of bad politics due to the violent attitude of various vested interests."
According to the case dossier, Minarul, the garment worker, suffered bullet injuries in his abdomen during the student-led movement in the port city’s Adamjee area on July 20. He was rushed to the city’s 300-bed government hospital, where a doctor declared him dead. He was buried at his ancestral home in Rajshahi the next day.
The plaintiff alleged in the case statement that the accused; led by Osman, Narayanganj MP Nazrul Islam Babu, former Textile and Jute minister Golam Dastagir Gazi and Kaiser Hasnat, carried out an attack on the protesters with firearms and sharp weapons on that day on Quader’s order.
“When Minarul came across during the incident, Osman shot him with the firearm in his hand and the victim fell.”
Meanwhile, another murder case was filed with Siddhirganj Police Station on Tuesday night. A total of 40 people, including former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, were accused in the case.
Aklima Akhter, the plaintiff in the case, is the wife of autorickshaw mechanic Mostafa Kamal Raju, 30, who was shot dead on July 20.
However, no arrest has been made so far in these cases, local police chief Bakar said.