Question marks over charge sheet

The charge sheet in the Narayanganj seven-murder case has been termed "flawed" by legal experts.

There are a number of loose ends in the charge sheet that the experts believe were kept "deliberately" and "in an unprofessional manner" to save "certain officials of a state force".

For example, police completed the investigation without even questioning the prime accused -- Nur Hossain, now in an Indian jail after he was caught by Indian police a year ago for intruding into the country following the murders.

"An investigation done without quizzing the prime accused can never be called conclusive," said Prof Mohammad Ziaur Rahman, chairman of Criminology department of Dhaka University.

"Whatever it took, the government should have brought back Nur Hossain or the investigation officer should have reached him in India for his statement," he added.

On April 27 last year, Narayanganj panel mayor Nazrul Islam, his four associates, senior lawyer Chandan Sarker and his driver were abducted and killed allegedly by some Rab-11 personnel. Their bodies were later found floating in the Shitalakkhya river.

Though the probe report states the top officials of Rab-11 carried out the killings in exchange for money from Nur Hossain, it does not include documentary evidence of financial transactions between him and the accused Rab officials.

Nur spent "a huge amount of money and property" on the now sacked Rab-11 commanding officer Col Tareque Syaeed Mohammad, and his subordinates -- Maj Arif Hossain and Lt Commander Masud Rana -- for years, the report says. All three officials were fired from their forces after their roles in the gruesome killings came to light.

Nur's intention was to eliminate "his enemy and political rival" Nazrul Islam, a city councillor.

Though the report mentioned Arif received Tk 10 lakh a month from Nur, the charge sheet did not mention how the transactions took place.

The confessional statements of both Tareque and Arif mentioned a discussion on this on April 29 last year.

At one stage of the discussion at the office of Rab's Additional Director General (operations) Col Ziaul Ahsan, Arif said he had asked for the bank account number of someone Nur trusted.

That's all the probe report says on the financial transaction between the alleged killers and Nur.

The report also does not mention if Col Zia on April 29 last year had really ordered Tareque and Arif to kill Nur Hossain for eliminating all witnesses to the crime, as claimed by Arif in his confessional statement.

Not keeping any witness was the same reason that led to the killing of six more people apart from Nazrul on that day, according to the charge sheet.

The probe report, prepared by Investigating Officer Mamunur Rashid Mandal, mentions Nur helped the Rab men in abducting and murdering the seven and dumping their bodies in the river.

But what it does not mention is the names of Nur's men who helped the Rab men in dumping the bodies by keeping the Kachpur BIWTC Jetty area crowd-free, though police had the names through the confessions of Ali Mohammad, one of Nur's closest aides.

This is one of the reasons why Nazrul's widow Selina Islam has filed a no-confidence petition against the charge sheet.

The police pressed murder charges against 35 people, including 25 Rab men.

Selina alleged the IO excluded many names that surfaced in the confessions of the accused and suspects.

"Questioning of Nur Hossain could have revealed critical information regarding the murders," she said in no-confidence plea.

Police went through more than 3,300-page transcription of phone conversations among Tareque, Arif, Rana, Nur Hossain and Col Zia but the report mentioned only two sentences from the contents. One of them is: "Don't carry your official mobile phone." This is an SMS Tareque sent to Arif and Rana on April 27 after giving the go-ahead for the murders.

But last week Col Zia on admitted to The Daily Star to have called Arif to his office at the Rab headquarters around 4:00am for discussing matters related to the murders.

All these led an associate professor of law at the DU to think that the probe report was flawed.

"This flawed charge sheet prepared in an unprofessional manner was submitted to save the high officials, who are involved in the killings, of a state force. Police know it very well how a charge sheet needs to be prepared to save someone," Hafizur Rahman Karzan, who read the charge sheet, told The Daily Star.

These correspondents called the IO several times over the past two days and sent text messages for his comments. But he never responded.