A Sylhet court yesterday remanded Foyzur Rahman’s parents and uncle in police custody in connection with the stabbing of Prof. Muhammed Zafar Iqbal. Foyzur is the main accused in the case. The Sylhet city metropolitan magistrate’s court granted five-day remand to the accused’s father, Maulana Atiqur Rahman, and his maternal uncle, Fazlur Rahman. His mother, Minara Begum, was remanded to two days of custody.

The police had sought seven-day remand for the trio three after producing them in court yesterday noon, Shafiqul Islam, officer-in- charge of Jalalabad police station, said.

Abdul Wahab, Sylhet’s additional deputy commissioner (Media), said police had found vital information from Foyzur and his elder brother, Enamul Hasan. The law enforcers wanted to interrogate Foyzur’s parents and uncle to get further information regarding the case, he added.

Foyzur’s father, who is a teacher at a women’s madrasa near Sheikhpara, and mother were detained on March 4 after they surrendered at Jalalabad police station. The law enforcers also arrested Fazlur from their Sheikhpara house and his paternal uncle, Abdul Kahar, from their family home at Kaliakapan village of Jagdal union in Derai in Sunamganj.

Enamul, who had fled with Foyzur’s tabs and mobile phones after the crime, was caught by members of the police’s Counter Terrorism Unit in Gazipur on March 8. He was later handed over to the Sylhet Metropolitan Police.

On March 3, Foyzur was caught red-handed after he stabbed Zafar on the Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) campus.

On March 8, a Sylhet court had granted police 10-day custody to interrogate Foyzur, who claimed to be a hawker and a madrasa student.

Police sources said Foyzur subscribed to a militant ideology. The nature of the attack and the information gathered from him during interrogation pointed towards a militant motive, they said.

The OC of Jalalabad police station said they were trying to get all necessary details from Foyzur. “But whatever information we have gathered so far, we are not ready to disclose them to the media yet,” he added.

Zafar, who is a professor of computer science and engineering at SUST, was stabbed on the evening of March 3. He was inspecting projects on display at a robotic competition on the SUST campus as part of a two-day festival of electrical and electronics engineering students.

The university students caught the 24-year-old attacker immediately and handed him over to police. Zafar was rushed to Sylhet Osmani Medical College Hospital and later flown to Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka.