Korail slum murder: Prime accused reveals ‘four reasons’

Followers of Nurul Alam hacked Jubo League activist Al Amin Sarker to death over the feuds over illegal gas, power and water connections, establishment of supremacy, extortion and formation of an Awami League committee at Korail slum in the capital’s Banani.

Nurul, the prime suspect in the murder case, revealed the grueling details to the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) during the remand.

He surrendered to the court on 31 December 2024 nearly one and a half years after Al Amin was killed at the Korail slum on 16 August 2022.

PBI said there was a feud between the Nurul gang and Jewel Sarker over establishing supremacy at the slum. A new committee of one of the Awami League’s Korail slum units was formed in August 2022. Angered over the new committee formation, members of the Nurul gang hacked Al Alam, younger brother of Jewel Sarker, to death at a mosque in the slum.

Following the incident, Jewel Sarker filed a murder case with the Banani police station against 23 people. The Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police filed a charge sheet against 22 people, and the court then asked the PBI for further investigation.

PBI sources said Nurul filed a bail plea after the surrender, which the court rejected. The PBI took him to a three-day remand and interrogated him. He is now behind bars, while the 22 remaining accused are currently on bail.

The case investigating officer and PBI inspector Md Tayeb Rahman told Prothom Alo the case is under investigation and police gleaned important details during the interrogation of the prime accused, and were verifying those.

A source familiar with the investigation said Nurul was a vice president of one of the Awami League’s Korail slum units and was a presidential hopeful in the next committee that was formed in August 2022. He, however, could not become the president due to the opposition from the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) ward 19 councillor Mofizur Rahman. Anger over the events, Nurul and his gang attacked Jewel Sarker and his brother Al Amin, who were the followers of the councillor.

Sources said Nurul said during the interrogation that he operated a gang of nine people to maintain dominance, and illegal power, gas and water connections, as well as to control extortion at the Korail slum. This gang collected about Tk 400,000 a month and shared it among themselves. Nurul was afraid of losing his power as he was excluded from the committee. So, they killed Al Amin to maintain their supremacy.

PBI said Nurul owns 19 shanties at the Korail slum. He also collected money by providing illegal power, gas and water connections to more than 100 shanties. Nurul did so by ‘managing’ the officials of the respective government agencies, who received a share of that money.

According to police sources, six murders took place at the Korail slum over the past 10 years due to feuds over narcotic trade, and collection of rent of shanties and fees of illegal gas, power and water connections. Jubo League activist Al Amin was the latest victim of this feud. People involved in this incident are the followers of a leader of Awami League’s Dhaka city north unit.

Investigation sources said Nurul stopped using cell phones after the murder of Al Amin and hid a relative’s house in Dohar of Dhaka’s Nawabganj. He then started living in a mess in this area and communicated with his through various communication apps.

PBI said his income from the slum stopped after he went hiding, thus, his family faced a financial crisis. Finally, he decided to surrender to court and planned to return to the slum after staying in jail for some time.

A photo showing Al Amin wielding a pistol made the rounds on social media. During the interrogation, Nurul informed police that once he had acted in a short film, and one of his still images was shared on social media. Nurul claimed the pistol displayed in the image was a toy gun.

Investigation officials said they were looking into the matter.

This report appeared in the online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten in English by Hasanul Banna