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According to sources, Siyam and Sadab, both students at Presidency University in Dhaka, hail from Gopalpur, Natore, but currently reside in Rajshahi. Their father, SM Kabiruzzaman, works at a gas filling station in Rajshahi. The brothers reportedly stopped tutoring a few months ago, raising questions about their recent activities.
On Saturday, July 26, at around 8 PM, police detained five individuals, including the two brothers, for allegedly attempting to extort money from Shammi Ahmed, a former MP whose party activities have been banned. According to Gulshan Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Md. Hafizur Rahman, the group initially demanded Tk 1 crore and had previously extorted Tk 10 lakh. On Saturday, they visited the residence to demand the remaining amount, leading to their arrest after police were informed.
SM Kabiruzzaman, the father of the brothers, expressed disbelief and grief over the incident. “It’s hard to accept,” he said, noting that his sons were religious, maintained beards, and prayed five times a day. He added that their tutoring income previously supported their education, which costs around Tk 20,000 monthly, as his modest earnings from the filling station barely cover rent.
Local residents in Rajshahi’s Kechuatail area, where the family resides, were equally stunned. Kabiruzzaman, who moved to Rajshahi a decade ago after selling his ancestral home in Natore due to business losses, has no property of his own. The community described the brothers as hardworking students who once relied on tutoring to make ends meet.
A Dhaka court has granted seven days of remand for four of the five accused, including Siyam and Sadab. The brothers were reportedly members of the Dhaka Metropolitan Branch of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement but have since been expelled from the organization following their arrest. The other two arrested individuals, Ibrahim Hossain Munna, convener of the same student movement branch, and Abdur Razzak bin Sulaiman (alias Riyad), a member of the Democratic Students’ Council, have also been expelled from their respective organizations.
Siyam and Sadab, who completed their secondary and higher secondary education at Kharkhari High School in Rajshahi, were reportedly close to Razzak, with multiple photos of them together circulating on Facebook. Mobasher Ali, a teacher at their former school and head of the Rajshahi Metropolitan Coordination Committee of the National Citizens Party (NCP), described the brothers as “good students” and expressed surprise at their involvement in the case.
The arrests have sparked discussions about the pressures faced by students and the unexpected turn in the brothers’ lives, leaving their family and community grappling with the news.
