FELANI MURDER
Bottleneck delays deposition of father, uncle
Bureaucratic bottleneck has delayed the deposition in a special court in India of the father and the uncle of Felani Khatun, a 25-year-old girl who was shot dead by India’s Border Security Force when she was crossing the border in Bangladesh on the Phulbari frontiers in Dinajpur on January 7, 2011.
Felani’s father Nur Islam and her uncle Hanif Ali were scheduled to give their deposition in the case in the General Security Force Court in India on July 15 and July 20, Border Guard Bangladesh officials said in June in consultation with their Indian counterparts.
The BGB officials made preparations accordingly but a problem cropped up as the Indian border guards were not unwilling to let in a four-member Bangladesh delegation — Felani’s father and uncle, a lawyer and a BGB official — without visas.
‘We thought that our delegation would visit India on an official permission but suddenly the Indian authorities requested us to obtain visas and this has caused the delay,’ an official told New Age.
Because of the bureaucratic bottleneck, the authorities set a fresh date for the beginning of the deposition on July 25.
The Bangladesh border guards managed passports for Nur Islam and Hanif and the Indian High Commission in Dhaka in the passed with issued visas to them.
The four-member team of Lieutenant Colonel Ziaul Haque Khaled, the BGB’s commanding officer in Kurigram, Nur Islam and Hanif, and public prosecutor SM Abraham Lincoln is now waiting for a call from India with a month’s visa, the BGB officials said.
‘We will inform our counterpart that we are ready to go. We hope that they [Indians] will soon send a reply,’ the BGB’s director (operations) Lieutenant Colonel Ziaul Hassan told New Age.
But till Saturday, not date has been set, the officials said.
The Indian guards shot Felani dead when she was crossing the border into Bangladesh over the barbed-wire fences.
She was one of the 214 Bangladeshis killed in the border between January 2009 and June 2013 after the Awami League-led government had assumed office.
The killing shocked people both in Bangladesh and India and drew a widespread condemnation.
The proceedings of the case have already begun in the Indian court, another senior official said.
The BSF, earlier, recorded statements of three Bangladeshi witnesses, including Felani’s father, during a primary investigation of the murder.
After the investigation, the Indian guards submitted the charge sheet against their constable Amiya Ghosh, who shot Felani.
According to the Indian law, Amiya Ghosh is being tried by the Indian General Security Force Court which gave an order on October 18, 2012 to start the trial in the Felani murder case.
The special BSF court is equivalent to an Indian court martial.
Lincoln, also secretary of the Kurigram Bar Association, said ‘We are fully ready to give our depositions.’
Three Bangladeshis were on the list of five witnesses the Indian guards prepared.
Courtesy of New Age
