Doubts over the time, place and manner of the arrest of many suspects continued putting in question the credibility of the law enforcement agencies.
The law enforcement agencies always dismissed the allegations made by the families or the arrested people in courts, and said ‘criminals’ made ‘fabricated statements to get sympathy’.
Rights activists and lawyers, however, said that in most of the cases, the allegations were found true and in many cases they gathered strong evidences against state agencies.
A ‘suspect’ in suicide attack on Rapid Action Battalion camp at Dakkhin Khan in Dhaka died in the battalion custody a few hours after the attack on March 17.
The battalion claimed that they held the suspect, Hanif Mridha, near Ashkona Hajj camp about three hours and a half after the attack, and later he died at a nearby hospital.
The family alleged that Hanif along with his friend Sohel Hossain Mantu was ‘abducted’ by battalion members from Siddhirganj in Narayanganj on February 27 and filed a missing complaint with Siddhirganj police station on March 4.
Hanif’s brother Halim Mridha later said that a RAB-1 pickup and microbus went to their house at Rayerbazar on March 15 with Hanif, and forced Hanif to sign cheques of Tk 6.70 lakh.
CCTV footage of the presence of the battalion vehicles on March 15 near the house of Hanif was aired by different television channels. Battalion officials said that they were investigating the allegation.
Rights organisation Odhikar in its 2016 annual report said that at least 274 people became victims of enforced disappearance by the state agencies between 2012 and 2016.
Of them, 35 were found dead, whereabouts of 80 still remained unknown and the rest 159 were freed or ‘shown as arrested.’
Rights defender Nur Khan Liton said that this was not a new phenomenon, and ‘in most of the cases, we find the allegations of the families true.’
He said, ‘The problem is that the people are losing their faith in law enforcement agencies and in the long run, the agencies will face reaction from within the force.’
On April 8, Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit chief Monirul Islam at a press conference disclosed the arrest of suspected Ansarullah Bangla Team leader Mowlana Maksudur Rahman Aka Abdullah, who, among others, used to endorse the killing of bloggers and secular activists.
Monirul claimed that they arrested Maksudur at Jatrabari bus stop on April 7 when he was coming from Mymensingh.
Maksudur, however, told metropolitan magistrate Mazharul Islam on April 8 that he was picked up from Mymensingh 22 days ago and was confined.
The magistrate remanded him in police custody for six days for interrogation.
People in plainclothes, identifying themselves as ‘people from administration’, stormed into the house of schoolteacher Shamsul Hoque in Rangpur and picked up his eldest son Ashfaq-e-Azam Apple early June 7, 2016.
The family said that a van inscribed ‘Rapid Action Battalion-13’ was seen moving around the area while Ashfaq was picked up.
Law enforcement agencies denied the ‘arrest’, leading the family to file a missing report with Kotwali police station.
Ashafq’s brother Azharul Hannan Orange, a final year student at Military Institute of Science and Technology in Dhaka, was also picked up from Navy Fleet Club in Chittagong on January 3, 2017.
On February 1, the battalion claimed that they arrested four members of banned militant outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, including Ashfaq, at a rented house at Jatrabari in Dhaka.
Battalion legal and media wing director Mufti Mahmud Khan told journalists that the detained Ashfaq-e-Azam was IT chief of a JMB faction that led the attack on Gulshan café on July 1, 2016.
Like Ashfaq, several cases were reported in which law enforcers claimed that they arrested the suspects ‘yesterday evening’ or ‘last night’ but the families alleged that the suspects were picked days, weeks and sometimes months ago.
On March 3, the counter-terrorism unit claimed that they arrested Mufti Abul Kashem, 52, alias Bara Hujur, of Kurigram at Parbata Senpara in Dhaka at on March 2 as he had ‘approved’ the plan of the attacks on the café.
Kashem, however, told the court of Dhaka metropolitan magistrate Sattyapada Shikdar on March 3 that he was arrested on May 20, 2016 and had been confined to Detective Branch office.
He said, ‘I was kept with nine engineers of Biman [who were arrested in December 2016 over a VVIP flight glitch]. I was brutally tortured.’
Then Kashem showed a lawyer, Zia Ul Hasan, and told the court that the lawyer was in custody for a day and they met there. The lawyer also supported his claim. The lawyer told New Age that he met Kashem in police custody, and he also met a physician there.
Monirul Islam, however, claimed that ‘criminals’ often fabricated their own story to get ‘sympathy.’
Former North South University teacher Hasnat Reza Karim, also a British national, and Toronto University student Tahmid Hasib Khan were produced before a Dhaka metropolitan magistrate’s court nearly one month after their rescue from the Gulshan café on July 2, 2016.
The police claimed that they arrested Hasnat at Gulshan and Tahmid at Bashundhara on August 3, 2016 but the families alleged that the two were picked up by law enforcers after they came out unhurt from the cafe, Holey Artisan Bakery.
Whereabouts of a British national, Tawhidur Rahman, 58, remained unknown for nearly three months until August 18, 2015, when the battalion presented him and two others before the media, alleging that they were members of self-professed Islamist group, Ansarullah Bangla Team.
Battalion officials claimed that Tawhidur admitted that he planned the murder of Bangladeshi-origin US citizen Avijt Roy in Dhaka in February 2015 and blogger Ananta Bijoy Das in Sylhet in May 2015.
Tawhidur’s lawyer ALM Kamal Uddin told the court that Tawhidur was picked up by law enforcers on May 28, 2015, and submitted a copy of a complaint filed with Dhanmondi police station.
Battalion spokesperson Mufti Mahmud Khan claimed that it criminals in many cases came up with such claims but they had fled from the families earlier.
On October 17, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police claimed that Rashedun Nabi Bhuiyan was arrested on October 16 at Sayedabad bus terminal in Dhaka as he led a team to kill secular blogger Nazimuddin Samad on April 6, 2016.
The family alleged that law enforcers picked him up from their house at Nangalkot in Comilla on May 19, 2016.
In the case of the killing of Italian aid worker Cesare Tavella at Gushan in September 2015, five suspects, including Russel Chowdhury, Minhajul Abedin Russel and Tamjid Ahmed Rubel, were picked up few days before October 25, when Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia told media that the four were arrested on October 25.
