CUSTODIAL DEATH, TORTURE Independent probe agency sought
Jurists, human rights activists and civil society members have sought an independent investigation agency for fair probe into widespread allegations of torture and deaths in the custody of law enforcement agencies.
Only 18 cases were filed against police for deaths and torture in their custody over the past seven years since the enactment of The Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention) Act 2013, according to a Police Headquarters’ statement.
Police investigators have submitted final reports in 14 of the cases without framing charge sheet against any accused police members.
The Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court on September 9 its first-ever verdict in a custodial death case jailed three police officers for life term and two police informers for seven years.
They were sentenced for the killing of Urdu-speaking youth Ishtiaque Ahmed Jony in the custody of Pallabi police station in 2014.
Jony’s custodial death case was probed by a judicial magistrate on the order from the trial court.
Meanwhile, trial continues in three other cases at different courts.
A total of 3,044 people were killed by law enforcement agencies in reported crossfire or gunfight until June 2020 from 2001 while 360 others were killed in torture in custody during the period, according to the rights organisation Odhikar.
Jurists and human rights activists said that few cases were recorded in courts over torture and deaths in custody as aggrieved people had no confidence in the probes conducted by the law enforcement agencies against their errant members.
They said that justice could be obtained in the cases of custodial deaths and torture in Bangladesh if the investigation was carried out by independent authorities like in many countries, including the USA, the UK and India.
‘It is against the spirit of justice and the rule of law when the police conduct an investigation against a police member,’ retired Appellate Division judge AHM Shamsuddin
Choudhury Manik told New Age.
Justice Shamsuddin opposed such police investigation and advised forming an independent authority with members from the police, lawyers and human rights activists to carry out such probes.
India, he said, has independent Central Bureau of Investigation, the US independent investigation agency consists of members from various entities while the UK has an independent prosecution agency that includes barristers, solicitors and others experts.
Human rights lawyer Shahdeen Malik suggested forming an independent investigation agency like the Anti-Corruption Commission to conduct investigations into allegations of torture and deaths in custody.
He said that police members could be posted to the independent investigation authority but they should not be transferred.
‘Investigators can work independently and people will have confidence in the investigation if an independent investigation agency is formed under the Supreme Court to probe allegations of custodial deaths and torture,’ said Dhaka University law teacher and former Human Rights Commission chairman Mizanur Rahman.
He said that an impartial investigation report could not be expected when a Rapid Action Battalion member investigated another RAB member.
‘The allegations against any members of the law enforcement agencies should be investigated by an independent authority as ultimately we can’t know what police do in investigations,’ Dhaka University emeritus professor Serajul Islam Choudhury said.
Police, he said, always try to protect the interest of the police.
On Thursday, 53 Supreme Court lawyers served a joint legal notice to the secretaries of the ministries of law and home and the inspector general of police requesting them to form a Police Complaint Investigation Commission.
The request was made to ensure independent and neutral investigation into and trial of over five hundred reported allegations of police crimes, including forced disappearance, extra-judicial killings and torture in custody.
The notice served by Supreme Court lawyer Mohammad Shishir Manir, on behalf of the 53 lawyers, asked the respondents to reply to the notice within four weeks.
Otherwise, a writ petition will be filed with the High Court seeking remedy, said the notice.
The notice cited Article 35 (3) of the Constitution and various laws and Supreme Court verdicts which opposed custodial deaths and torture and asked for independent probe into such allegations against law enforcement agencies.
‘There are authorities which have found it improper for an inquiry to be held against a person by a person belonging to the same department,’ the Appellate Division said in the state versus sub-inspector Moinul Hoque in the case relating to raping and killing of Yasmin in Dinajpur by three police personnel on August 24, 1995.
The legal notice attached to it over 500 hundred complaints reported by three daily newspapers from 2017 to August 2020 against members of law enforcement agencies.
The reports mentioned that police were involved in 18 types of crimes.
News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net
