According to a report in The Daily Star on August 27, a female college student was tortured inside Ukhiya police station by the OC and some other cops. Reportedly, the 22-year-old girl from Maheshkhali upazila was in a relationship with a constable of the station and when she asked him to marry her, he left her. As the girl went to the police station to lodge a complaint against the constable, the OC, instead of recording the complaint, assaulted her physically. And not just the OC, several other cops who were present there also beat her up, leaving her injured. She was released from the police station the following day.
Torture in police custody has been happening regularly in our country. But the guilty police personnel have hardly been punished according to the law. Although our government enacted the Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention) Act in 2013, unfortunately, the police has been demanding to amend the law for long.
While in most cases the victims do not have the courage and connection to file cases against the law enforcers in question, in this case, the girl who was tortured has filed a case with Cox’s Bazar Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-3 against the four police personnel, including the OC of the Ukhiya Police Station, which is a very positive development. The court also took the case into cognisance and ordered the Police Bureau of Investigation in the district to investigate the case and submit a report to it.
We now demand an impartial investigation into the case and hope that the guilty police personnel will face justice for the crime they have committed.
