Bangladesh saw another episode of violence late Wednesday night when its Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader, Azizur Rahman Musabbir, was shot dead in Dhaka, local media reported.
Another leader, Abu Sufian Masud, General Secretary of the Karwan Bazar Van Association, was injured in the shooting, media reports stated.
Musabbir, who was the former general secretary of Dhaka City North Swechchhasebak Dal, the volunteer wing of the BNP, was shot at around 8.40 pm by unidentified gunmen in the Tejturi Bazar area behind Bashundhara Market in the capital.
The death of Musabbir, which was also confirmed by Additional Deputy Police Commissioner (ADC) of the Tejgaon Division, Fazlul Karim, adds to concerns of increasing violence in the country ahead of the general elections slated for February 12 this year.
Following the shooting, protests were staged near the Sonargaon intersection by a group that included local BNP members.
According to a local daily, Musabbir had attended a programme near the Super Star Hotel earlier in the evening with a group of Shariatpur residents, after which he was walking along with Sufian along a nearby lane when two attackers opened fire at them before fleeing the scene.
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Both Musabbir and Abu Sufian were critically injured. Musabbir was first taken to BRB Hospital, where he later died; Abu Sufian was later sent to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Inspector Md Faruq, in charge of the police camp at the hospital, said Sufian was shot on the left side of his abdomen and was undergoing treatment in the emergency ward.
Musabbir had contested the 2020 city corporation polls as a BNP-backed candidate for the councillor post in Ward-26 of Tejgaon, the daily reported. Family members and party activists said he had also spent significant time in jail during the Awami League regime and had been arrested multiple times in political cases.
A native of Shariatpur, he was the eldest of three siblings and lived with his family on Garden Road in West Karwan Bazar.
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