Mohammadpur thana police said that following the news item published in The Daily Star on July 17, revealing the identity of the 'hit-and-drive' culprits, the police raided the house of the driver Sujon Sardar, son of late Shahab Ali Sardar, at 48/B New Eskaton Road.

MA Malek, the officer in charge of Mohammadpur thana, that is investigating the case, said that police had also sent an urgent note to Barisal police to arrest Sujon Sardar from his village home at Muladi under Uzirpur thana.

"We have asked the Multimode Group to hand over their director administration, Din Mohammad Khan, whom we believe was being driven in the car during the tragic incident," Malek told The Daily Star. He explained that the tragic death of the doctor is a murder case under section 302 of the penal code and therefore everyone in the car is an accused in the murder case. Malek added that they are investigating why the company managers had kept quiet following the doctor's death, withholding vital information from the police.

Mohammadpur police sources claim they have proof that Din Mohammad left the country the day after the incident.

On the day of the incident, Dr Mohammad Shajahan Ali, 40, a medical officer of the Pangu Hospital had just dropped his wife off near the Sobhanbagh mosque on Mirpur Road. As Shajahan took off again on his motorbike, Sujon Sardar, driving the company's Proton Saga fitted with dangerously exposed illegal bumpers, knocked him from behind. As the doctor fell, his leg became entangled with the bumper. Dozens of onlookers, including his wife, signalled and shouted to the driver to stop the car. But neither Sujon nor Din Mohammad Khan paid any heed.

Several hundred people along the car's route, from Sobhanbagh mosque up to the Panthapath-Green Road intersection, attempted in vain to stop the vehicle. When it arrived near the Green Road intersection with the fatally wounded Shajahan, his leg still trapped in the illegal bumper, the car hit another vehicle carrying bottled water. The collision dislodged the victim from the bumper, and Sujon and Din Mohammad Khan drove away from the scene.

After this, more than 17 days passed without any police action whatsoever. The Daily Star investigation revealed that having left the doctor to die, the accused took a right turn into Free School Street, Box Culvert Road, and smashed half a dozen rickshaw vans, before knocking down a child with the same illegal bumper. Onlookers then chased the vehicle to the end of the road, and found it parked in the underground car park of Anchor Tower where Multimode Group has its office.

The driver and the passenger had disappeared. The car was seized, but police later gave a statement that the car had been recovered in front of the Samorita Hospital. Until the Daily Star report of July 17, the police had mysteriously kept silent about the case and apparently had made no effort to find the owners of the car.