Attorney general Mahbubey Alam on Saturday defended the police, saying that they had tried to save the life of the late former deputy attorney general, Momtaj Uddin Ahmed, on August 11 by taking him to the hospital immediately after he began complaining of pain in his chest some time after his arrest.
He also said that the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party was trying to do politics with Ahmed’s corpse by accusing the police of torturing Ahmed soon after his arrest, which caused his death.
‘I have come to know after speaking with the police that MU Ahmed survived that heart attack as they had taken him to hospital as soon as pain began in his heart,’ Mahbubey Alam told reporters in an impromptu press briefing at his government residence on Minto Road.
He had called the briefing to clear his position on the remark of the Supreme Court Bar Association’s president, Khandker Mahbub Hossain, who had told reporters on Friday that Mahbubey Alam had gone to Square Hospitals to influence the executive magistrate and the police in the preparation of the report on the inquest of Ahmed’s bead body.
The AG had stayed there when the examination was being carried on and no one else was allowed to witness it, not even Ahmed’s family members.
‘We suspect that he dictated the report and ensured that there was no mention of the marks of electric shocks on MU Ahmed’s body,’ Mahbub Hossain added.
Mahbubey Alam said that Mahbub Hossain had resorted to ‘falsehood’ by making these statements to reap political gains.
‘I went to the hospital to see Ahmed’s body as a former SCBA leader and the attorney general. But during my visit some pro-BNP lawyers, along with outsiders, hurled abusive words at me and chanted slogan against me at the hospital’s entrance,’ said Mahbubey Alam. ‘I am angry and hurt at his remark.’
Mahbubey also said that he had seen nobody beside Ahmed’s body when he went to the hospital.
Ahmed, who was admitted to the hospital on August 16, breathed his last at around 1:10pm on Friday. Before being admitted to Square Hospitals, he underwent treatment at the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases.
Within hours after his arrest on August 11, Ahmed fell sick in the office of the Detective Branch and was taken to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, but physicians there referred him to the NICVD.
‘If he was really tortured, why didn’t the BNP lawyers demand investigation into the matter at that time?’ asked Mahbubey.
He also said that it could be known after examining Ahmed’s medical report whether he was tortured to death in police custody or died of heart attack.
Answering a query on whether Ahmed was in the police custody or not during his death, Mahbubey replied obliquely, ‘Though I am not involved in the process, it can be said tat the police’s statement is not unbelievable.’
Regarding the murder case lodged by Ahmed’s wife against him and others, Mahbubey said, ‘I have been implicated in the case to harass me and exert undue pressure on me.’
He also dismissed the BNP’s allegation that Ahmed was arrested in a ‘false case’. ‘There is no scope to say now that the case was false as the concerned pro-BNP lawyers apologized to the court for the chaos created by them in a courtroom on August 2 after the judge had warned BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia not to make derogatory and disrespectful statements about the Constitution.’
Courtesy of New Age
