Torturer-cops suspended

SI Masud

Dhaka Metropolitan Police yesterday suspended sub-inspectors Masud Shikder and Arshadul Islam Akash of Mohammadpur and Jatrabari police stations in connection with assaulting Bangladesh Bank official Golam Rabbi and Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) official Bikash Chandra Das.

The move followed public uproar over the two recent incidents of police excesses on innocent people in the city.

National Human Rights Commission Chairman Prof Mizanur Rahman yesterday said law enforcers were “feeling a sense of impunity as if nothing would happen to them”. 

Talking to The Daily Star, DSCC Mayor Sayeed Khokon said his corporation would take legal action if the police authorities did not take stern actions against their members following probes. Such behaviour of law enforcers is not acceptable in a modern civilised state, he added. 

Earlier in the day, briefing reporters at the DMP Media Centre, Joint Commissioner Monirul Islam of DMP said the police department suspended SI Masud considering that he was responsible for the assault on the central bank official.

The department will not shoulder the responsibility for any crimes committed by its members, he added.

He said two committees, one each by the DMP and the police headquarters, were formed to probe the assault of Bikash. The committees were asked to submit their reports in the shortest possible time.

SI Masud allegedly beat up Rabbi, also an ex-news presenter of a private television channel, on a police van for several hours while patrolling the streets in the capital's Mohammadpur a week ago.

He was initially closed from Mohammadpur Police Station and attached to the DMP deputy commissioner's office under Tejgaon Division.

RABBI TRAUMATISED

Doctors at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) yesterday said Rabbi already recovered from injuries, but he was suffering from severe mental trauma.

He was undergoing treatment at a cabin at the hospital's emergency casualty unit. Doctor Mohiuddin Matubbar of the unit said the patient would soon be moved to the mental health department.

Meanwhile, the DMCH authorities yesterday deployed an Ansar member for Rabbi's security after receiving a formal request from him for providing him with security.

Victim's brother Rashed Alam said two men posing as journalists entered the hospital cabin on Friday and threatened Rabbi that he must refrain from seeking legal action against his torturers.

Meanwhile, the police committee investigating the alleged torture of Rabbi visited him at the DMCH around 8:15pm. They spoke with him in his cabin, when he described the torture and demanded justice, said Rashed Alam.

TORTURE OF BIKASH

SI Arshadul Islam Akash of Jatrabari Police Station along with his fellow colleagues beat up DSCC official Bikash in the capital's Jatrabari on Friday, said his family members.

The cops pounced on Bikash, a cleaning inspector of DSCC, when he was going to work around 4:15am, they said.

SI Akash hit Bikash in his head without saying anything, his wife Saraswati Das said quoting some DSCC cleaners who were working in the area.

The moment Bikash fell off his motorcycle, Akash and other policemen started kicking him and hitting him with their rifles, she added.

“At one stage, Akash hit my husband in his nose with the butt of his gun. My husband started to bleed from the nose.”

Reaching the spot around 5:00am, Saraswati and her family members found Bikash lying, like a dead person, on a rickshaw-van.

“Although my husband was bleeding profusely, the cops didn't send him to a hospital. Rather, they were trying to cover up the crime,” complained Saraswati.

The family then took Bikash to the DMCH. Later, he was moved to LabAid Hospital where he is now under observation at the ICU.

Swarashati said her husband talked to her through gestures as he could not speak.

Victim's cousin Liton Das said Bikash's brothers were bearing the high costs of his treatment at the private hospital. He demanded the government meted out punishment to the offending cops.

NHRC CHIEF WORRIED

After visiting Bikash at the hospital yesterday, NHRC Chairman Mizanur told reporters that common people would feel insecure if exemplary punishment was not handed down to guilty cops.

“While beating up Bikash, a cop told him that the police are the king of the country. Such a comment from a member of the police department is arrogant and alarming,” he added.