Beyond belief

On June 20 last year, police arrested two men -- Sonu and Rubel -- and recovered two knives from their possession from the capital’s Geneva camp in Mohammadpur. A third man named Rahi fled the scene, leaving a steel-made machete.

This is a part of a charge sheet Mohammadpur police submitted before a Dhaka court in September that year.

The problem is Rahi, son of late Kamrul Hasan, was in Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj that day, awaiting his trial in another case.

He was originally arrested on February 15 last year on charges of possessing 200 pieces of yaba tab-lets. A Dhaka court granted him bail in that case on June 28, a week after he was booked in the arms case, court documents show.

Sub-inspector (SI) Apurba Kumar Barman filed both the cases, although the arms case was investigated by his colleague Arif Hossain, also an SI.

After three months of investigation, Arif submitted the charge sheet against Sonu, Rubel and Rahi on September 13.

And as is the norm, the then OC Jamal Uddin Mir approved the charge sheet for submission before the court. The case is now pending before the Metropolitan Sessions Judges’ Court of Dhaka.

“Police filed this case when I was in jail. They say I fled the scene leaving a machete. How could anyone do that when he is already in jail?” Rahi told The Daily Star recently.

“The case was filed to harass me, nothing else,” he said.

SI Apurba, the complainant of the case, said he made Rahi an accused because eyewitnesses gave his name.

“The investigating officer can drop the name of any accused if he does not find evidence against him during investigations,” he said.

Contacted, investigating officer Arif said he would not make any comment on the matter.

“Talk to my officer-in-charge or senior officials,” he said.

Pressed further, he said he was under no obligation to talk to journalists and answer their questions.

“I’m accountable only to my senior officers,” he said.

But the then OC Jamal Uddin Mir, now posted in Kadamtoli Police Station, squarely blamed Arif.

“I am not responsible for this. It was the duty of the investigating officer to probe the matter properly. It was his duty to find out who was in jail at the time or not,” he said.

Contacted last night, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner (Tejgaon division) Biplob Kumar Sarker said he could not make any comment without seeing the case documents.