The Daily Star: Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Torture During Emergency: Army officer, 2 others sued
Court Correspondent
An attempted murder case was filed yesterday against an army major and two others with the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's (CMM) Court of Dhaka.
Mohammad Shamsuddin Ahmed, proprietor of M/S Shahmsuddin Overseas, filed the case against the three on charges of attempting to murder him in their custody during the state of emergency in 2007.
This is the first time a case has been filed against an army officer for torturing in custody.
After the hearing, Metropolitan Magistrate Kanika Biswas recorded the statement of complainant, took it into cognisance and did not pass any order on the issue.
The accused in the case are Major Sarwar and two civilians Abdus Samad and Md Saiful Islam.
In his complaint, Shamsuddin mentioned that Maj Sarwar, Samad and Saiful picked him up from his Nayapaltan office on July 26 in 2007 and took him to the temporary army camp at Paltan Community Centre where they tortured him mercilessly without any reason.
The plaintiff alleged that he lost his sense after the torture and was shifted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) for treatment as his condition was deteriorating.
Later, he was shown arrested in a criminal case filed with Paltan Police Station on July 26, 2007 even though his name was not in the first information report (FIR).
He was released on bail on August 6, 2007. Moreover, the investigation officer submitted a final report saying that the charges brought against him (plaintiff) were not proved, complainant said.
Adv. Shahanur Islam Saikot, Programme manager of Legal & Human Rights affairs at Bangladesh Institute of Human Rights moved the case on behalf of the complainant.
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