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Wrongful arrest, detention yet to stop

Compensation recommended for 10 innocent people


Published : 23 Jul 2022 10:05 PM | Updated : 23 Jul 2022 10:05 PM

The wrongful arrest and the imprisonment of innocent people have not yet stopped in the country. 

Many innocent people are still now arrested and imprisoned wrongfully for various reasons, which include same name, mistaken identity, mistakes of law enforcers, wrongful investigation of law enforcers, collusion with law enforcers and lawyers in some cases. 

One Shahriar Ahmed Sumon has been in jail for more than three months instead of a convict whose name is Sumon. It was alleged that police arrested innocent Sumon from Mirpur in the capital on April 6 this year wrongfully.  

Pran Ballabh Ghosh, lawyer of convicted Sumon, said that he has been handling the case for eight years. His client was a resident of Mirpur area in the capital. He was a cloth merchant by profession. Sumon has been absconding since his conviction was pronounced in the case five years ago. “As far as we know, Sumon is absconding,” he said. 

After examining the picture of wrongfully detained Sumon, the lawyer said that this Sumon has no similarity with his one-time client Sumon. In last month, 53-year old Abdur Razzak Sardar, a mason by profession, spent 11 hours in police custody in Rajshahi without committing any crime, only because he had the same name and address of an accused.

Abdur Razzak was picked up by Bagmara police from his house at Bajekola village at Bagmara upazila in Rajshahi district. Later, he was released following the intervention of the local UP chairman. 

Although there is rare example of remedy or compensation for wrongful arrest and imprisonment in the past, the National Human Rights Commission has now recommended the payment of a ‘token compensation’ to ten victims , who were arrested wrongfully and put into jail.

Police had arrested the victims only because their names matched with the accused people in different cases.

The National Human Rights Commission made the recommendations on Thursday (July 21) after hearing the representative from the home ministry as well as reviewing a probe report submitted by the ministry on February 18 in 2021 complying with its order issued in February 2020.

The commission recommended payment of Tk5 lakh to the mother of Mizanur Rahman, one of the 10 victims, who was confined in Jashore Central Jail. Mizan died in a hospital on February 10 in 2020 after he was freed from jail on January 22, a day after he was sent to jail.

Mizan’s mother alleged that police tortured her son in custody after his arrest.

The commission recommended payment of Tk 50,000 as compensation to each of the nine other victims, who were confined in jails between two weeks to three months.

The victims are- Abdul Aziz of the Jashore Central Jail, Rekha Khatun of the same jail, Md Shahinur Rahman of the Rajshahi Central Jail, Md Rafiqul Islam of Gazipur District Jail, SM Rabiul Islam of Bagherhat District Jail, Md Rubel Ali of Chapainawabganj District Jail, Jewel Rana of Barishal District Jail, Md Ibrahim Hawlader of Dhaka Central Jail, Keraniganj and Md Salam Dhali of Khulna District Jail.

The commission made a six-point recommendation required to be followed by the members of law enforcement agencies and the department of prisons to stop the wrongful arrest and confinement of innocent people. 

The recommendations include the verification of the NID card or Birth Registration Certificates of the arrested persons, introducing a system of storing biometric data of arrested persons, putting names of parents of accused against whom warrant would be issued, as well as age and profession of accused.

The commission said that warrant execution authorities must remain extra- cautious while identifying the wanted accused or fugitive convicts and the police would require to verify details of the person before arresting him.

The commission asked the home ministry to implement the recommendations and submit a compliance report to it.

The commission came up with the recommendations after disposing of a complaint filed by Children Charity Bangladesh Foundation attaching a Newspaper report published on February 18 in 2020 about the confinement of innocent persons instead of real offenders.

Supreme Court lawyer Md Abdul Halim and his junior Ishrat Hasan provided free legal assistance to the victims and some of their families, who appeared before the commission.

Imprisonment for mistaken identity causes serious human rights violations. Such incident violates Article 32 of the Constitution. It is said in the Article, “No person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty saves in accordance with law.”

According to experts, the Identification of Prisoners Act, 1920 and the Jail Code are not adequate to underscore the prison population. The 1920 Act is a sketchy law with a few details. It requires recording finger and footprint impressions as prisoner identification mechanism. The Jail Code prescribes registering body shape, colour, particular marks, marks of injury, for the identification purposes of prisoners.

There are 651 police stations and 68 prisons in Bangladesh. Implementation of a digitalised biometric identification system in these places can be a solution.