Faisal Hossain is one of the thousands of people injured during the July mass uprising. The 28-year-old was shot in the waist while pulling his rickshaw at Baipail in Dhaka’s Ashulia around 11:00am on August 5, just a few hours before Sheikh Hasina fled to India.
Badly injured, Faisal was rushed to Enam Medical College Hospital in Savar, where he was treated for about 45 days. He is still unable to work.
On October 15, his wife, Tania Khatun, filed a case for attempted murder with Dhaka’s chief judicial magistrate’s court, which directed the Ashulia police to register the complaint as a First Information Report (FIR).
The FIR named 203 suspects, including Hasina, several top Awami League leaders and senior police officials.
Just four days later on October 19, Tania changed her minds about some suspects, and filed a petition with a Dhaka court to drop 13 people previously named in the case. Their political identity is not clear from the petition.
“The accused were not present at the scene,” says the petition, seen by The Daily Star, adding that she initially named them “wrongfully and being aggrieved” by her husband’s injuries. “These individuals would be most grievously harmed if they are not excluded from the case.”
But Tania did not know then – and does not know now – any of these 13 people personally, or any of the suspects named in the case.
“I don’t know the updates of the case. My brother knows about it,” she said, indicating the complaint was drafted by her brother.
She hung up the phone when asked about the case details, and did not receive our calls since. The Daily Star could not contact her brother as she did not give his name.
Tania’s case is not isolated. This newspaper has so far found plaintiffs in 55 cases have submitted petitions to exclude at least 195 people they had initially named as suspects in cases for murder or attempted murder since the first week of August.
Of them, six are law enforcement officers, including Additional IGP Selim Md Jahangir and Bangladesh Border Guard Director General Major General Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui; two teachers of a public university; two officials of the environment department and former cabinet secretary Mahbub Hossain.
This newspaper could not establish any clear political connection of 75 people. The remaining are Awami League leaders and activists.
TWO BIZARRE CASES
Court records show at least 550 cases, mostly for murder, were filed with various courts and police stations in Dhaka till November 25 since August 5.
At least seven plaintiffs, including Tania, told The Daily Star that they were not involved in the drafting of the FIRs. They only signed the complaints drafted by others.
Tania at least knows who drafted the case – her brother – but in the rest six cases, the plaintiffs do not even know the people who came to their houses to take them to the police stations to sign the complaints. Four of these plaintiffs said these people identified themselves as local political party activists.
The case of Aklima Begum is among the most peculiar. She does not personally know any of the 167 suspects named in the case filed over her husband’s death. She also does know any of those who came to her house to have the complaint signed or any of those who came to her house again to have the petition signed to have some of the suspects excluded from the case.
This case was filed with Mohammadpur Police Station over the death of her husband, Akhter Hossain, who was shot in Basila area on July 19, according to the FIR.
Rahima Akter, another plaintiff now seeking to drop some names, said she got some financial help from some local people after the death of her husband, Abdul Kadir Manik. She was then taken to Bhatara Police Station by some locals to sign the complaint. Over the last few weeks, she received so many phone calls from people protesting their innocence that she now wants to withdraw the case altogether.
“Tell me, how do I discontinue the case?” she told The Daily Star by phone.
‘RELIEVE THE INNOCENT’
Legal experts and rights activists expressed concerns over the inclusion of random names, and said innocent people would be harassed if they are falsely implicated. There are also allegations that in many cases people are being implicated out of political rivalries or to settle old scores.
Noted rights activist Nur Khan Liton thinks many such cases are being filed to harass people.
“Cases are being filed against such people that it questions their veracity…. and now, many names are being excluded due to pressure and corruption,” he said.
Noted Supreme Court lawyer ZI Khan Panna is one such victim. He was named in an attempted murder case filed on October 17, sparking harsh criticisms. The plaintiff subsequently applied to drop his name from the case.
A university teacher, whose name was included in a murder case, recently told this newspaper, “I was not involved in any crime, but I was accused in one case. The complainant appealed to drop my name when he realised I am innocent. The authorities should take quick steps to relieve the innocent from such harassment.”
Senior criminal lawyer Ehsanul Haque Shomaji said that during investigation process, there is no legal scope to withdraw any suspect’s name, and so complainants should be more careful about naming people in FIRs.
According to him, when plaintiffs file for dropping names mentioned in the complaints, it generally weakens the case.
EXPLOITATION?
Shariatpur’s Rubel Talukder has recently filed a petition to exclude 18 suspects from the case he filed over the death of his brother Riazul Talukder.
A BNP activist, Riazul was shot in the Jatrabari area around 5:00pm on August 4 during the anti-government protest. He died at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital while under treatment several hours later, according to the case statement, lodged with Jatrabari Police Station on September 12.
Rubel named 135 suspects, including Hasina and AL leaders from Shariatpur, in the case.
“I appealed to drop the 18 names as they were wrongfully named in the case. I don’t know how their names were included,” he told The Daily Star.
Local sources confirmed that most of these 18 people are AL leaders and activists. Some of them held – or currently hold – posts in different local government bodies.
An AL leader from the district’s Jajira, who is also a suspect in the case, said Rubel took money promising to drop some names from the case.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said he too was part of a discussion with some of these 18 people to have his name excluded. But they (the 18 people) struck the final deal with Rubel without informing him and several others.
Rubel denied the allegation. The Daily Star spoke with two of these 18, and both denied that they gave any money in return for dropping their names.
Besides Rubel and Tania, 18 complainants are now seeking to drop 77 names included in as many cases in Jatrabari and Uttara East police stations alone between August and October.
Sara Hossain, a human rights lawyer, said the recent allegation against senior lawyer ZI Khan Panna was a glaring example of how individuals can exploit the criminal justice system to harass others by falsely including their names in a criminal case. Fortunately, the complainant dropped his name after a public outrage.
“We now see a trend of plaintiffs seeking to drop names from the FIRs. If genuine mistakes led to their inclusion in the first place, this can be seen in a positive light as it will stop harassment. But if some names get dropped due to any kind of enticement, influence or threat, then there is a real risk of justice being denied to the victims of the July mass killings,” she added.
Daily Star
