26 cases against a retired teacher

Twenty-six cases of extortion, vandalism, cheque forgery and looting.

The accused are a school teacher and his family members, who claim the charges are baseless and brought against them for a land-related dispute.

The cases were filed against retired government primary school teacher Kafil Uddin (85), a resident of Purbo Baghbari area in Gazipur, by Muhammad Imtiaz Karim, a businessman and resident of Dhaka's Gulshan area.

These 26 cases were filed in the last seven years. The last one was filed on May 16 this year with Kashimpur Police Station; a total of 11 named and 20 unnamed individuals were made accused in the case.

According to the latest case statement, the accused persons demanded Tk 20 lakh and looted chickens and trees from a cattle farm in Baghbari area on May 15.

On May 20, Kafil Uddin and his nephew Jahirul Islam were arrested in the case. Two days later, Kafil was released on bail.

However, this correspondent visited the area on May 23 and found no existence of a cattle farm there. Locals said they have not seen any such farm in the last few years.

Police are currently investigating the case.  Barkatullah Khan, additional commissioner of Gazipur Metropolitan Police, is leading the probe.

According to Kafil Uddin's daughter Quamrunnahar Shova, they have an ancestral land in Baghbari, where one Imtiaz Karim has been for quite some years.

"Imtiaz has been trying to occupy our land for a while now. That is why he has been filing these false cases one after another," she said.

Contacted, Emdadul Haque Masum, a lawyer based in Gazipur, said it requires prior investigation and permission from senior police officials to register an extortion case.

According to Shova, Kashimpur police did not investigate the matter before registering the case.

However, the police station's officer-in-charge Mahbub-e-Khoda said a pre-investigation is not necessary while filing these cases.

Contacted, Imtiaz Karim said he, along with three others, bought one acre and 80 decimals of land from Kafil Uddin's family.

"They are now refusing to give up the land they sold to me," said Imtiaz.

"Police will find out whether the charges are false or not after investigation," he said when asked about the cases.