"Since my father's assassination, the killers are phoning and threatening us to withdraw the case," Ahsanullah's younger son Zabid Ahsan Sohel told The Daily Star yesterday.

"One rang up last night and said they would take away his body from his grave unless we withdraw the case," Sohel said, adding they have also received a number of death threats in the last four days.

"And so, our relatives are not letting my brother or sister or me to answer phone calls."

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) yesterday, meanwhile, formally launched a probe into the high-profile assassination of the main opposition's frontline lawmaker. Its detectives visited the place of occurrence and spoke to complainant of the case and Ahsanullah's relatives.

Police have failed to arrest any of the killers who, Sohel said, have told the family that they have the backing of the administration and are immune to arrest or trial.

"They have gunned down a popular and honest man but still won't let us pay tribute to him without worry," he said at their Noagaon house in Tongi. He added that the killers are also threatening the relatives with arrest whenever they would try to visit the family.

"What wrong he has done to them? There is no man in the area who will say that our father ever hurt or harmed any of them. Why then he had to meet such a tragic end?" asked Sohel, tears streaming down his cheeks.

"My father's popularity brought about his death," he sighed.

GOVT LINK ALLEGED

Tongi Awami League, meanwhile, yesterday alleged that some top government officials are involved in the assassination. It also alleged that these officials have helped the assassins leave Tongi, where Ahsanullah was shot and killed near his house in a burst of gunfire.

"Although the assassination took place at 12:30pm on Friday, the investigation officer was appointed the following day and they took more time to start investigation," Rajab Ali, general secretary of Tongi Awami League, said at a press conference at the party's Notun Bazaar office yesterday.

"Many people witnessed the incident and identified the killers, who were later named in the first information report. But without any investigation, the ministry of home and LGRD Minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan insisted that the killing was an outcome of intra-party conflict to divert the incident to different streams," he said.

The AL leaders asked the government to stop spreading 'false information' and bring to book the killers whom, they said, a leader of BNP's youth wing Jatiyatabadi Jubo Dal patronises.

CID STARTS PROBE

Assistant Superintendent of CID Police Khalequzzaman, currently investigating the case, talked with complainant Motiur Rahman Moti, Ahsanullah's younger brother, and other relatives.

"All the killers have fled their houses," Khalequzzaman told The Daily Star by telephone from Gazipur yesterday, adding that adequate forces were engaged to nab the killers.

Motiur filed the case with Tongi Police Station Saturday and Khalequzzaman received the docket of case Monday night after it was transferred to the CID the same day.

HASINA TO VISIT FAMILY

AL President and Leader of the Opposition in parliament Sheikh Hasina will visit Ahsanullah's family at 4:00pm tomorrow. She will fly back home cutting short her 11-day visit to the US. The AL chief will also go to the slain lawmaker's village home in Hyderabad, Tongi.

PROTEST OVER MASS ARRESTS

Legal aid organisation Ain O Salish Kendro (ASK), meanwhile, has strongly protested the mindless arrests in Tongi since Ahsanullah's killing. "Not only AL leaders and activists, but innocent people as well are being indiscriminately arrested by police to quell public protest against the killing," the ASK said in a press release yesterday.

Police are violating human rights and not following legal procedures in their operation, it observed.

"The killing of such a popular leader by criminals not only projects extreme deterioration of the country's politics, but also its law and order situation. It (the killing) has created a sense of insecurity among people and such arrests have aggravated the feeling of insecurity," the ASK release added.

It demanded punishment of the real killers and a stop to 'uncalled for arrests'.