Cleaning inspector of Dhaka South City Corporation Bikash Chandra receives treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital on Friday after he was beaten up by policemen in the capital.
Cops allegedly beat up a Dhaka South City Corporation cleaning inspector in the city’s Jatrabari area on early Friday.
The victim, Bikash Chandra Das, 40, was admitted to Labaid Hospital with severe injuries in the nose, face, neck, back and thighs.
Bikash’s brother Liton Chandra Das told New Age on Friday evening that Bikash still remained unconscious. The physicians at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where Bikash was admitted in the morning, said his condition was critical and nothing could be said within 24 hours.
Bikash’s wife Saraswati Das said that her husband left their Dayaganj house on his official motorcycle at about 4:00am to oversee the road cleaning like other days.
She said that at about 5:00am, she received a call from a cleaner that her husband was beaten up by cops at Mir Hazirbagh.
Saraswati, her brother and Bikash’s two brothers went to the spot and found Bikash lying unconscious on a van.
Quoting cleaners who were on the spot, Saraswati said a policeman in plain clothes at a checkpoint at Mir Hajirbagh asked Bikash to stop.
‘When Bikash stopped his motorcycle a bit ahead of the checkpoint, the policeman hit Bikash on his neck from behind. Later, the cops at the checkpoint started kicking him with their boots and beating him mercilessly with rifle butts. At one stage, the team leader of the cops, sub-inspector Arshad Hossain Akash, hit Bikash in the nose with a revolver,’ Saraswati quoted the cleaners as saying.
‘I found my husband lying on a van like a dead man. Refraining from taking him to hospital, they [cops] were trying to hide the fact saying that he was a mugger,’ Saraswati said.
Quoting the cleaners, she said that though Bikash identified him as a government official, the cops showed no mercy.
Jatrabari police station officer-in-Charge Abani Shankar Kor said that a plainclothes police team of four led by sub-inspector Arshad Hossain Akash was on duty at Mir Hazirbagh.
‘It was an incident of misunderstanding…As the police team was in plain clothes, the victim might have taken them for muggers.’
Asked why the policemen beat Bikash, he said, ‘The area is mugging-prone area. The policemen took him for a mugger.’
He, however, said, ‘We will punish the policemen if they are found guilty.’
Liton Chandra Das said that they did not file any case. ‘We have contacted city corporation officials and they assured us of looking into after the matter,’ he said.
Earlier on January 10, Mohammadpur police sub-inspector Masud Shikder tortured Bangladesh Bank official Golam Rabby and demanded Tk 5 lakh threatening to kill him in the name of crossfire.
Source: New Age
