A one-member judicial committee was appointed on Wednesday to probe into the lynching of six students at Amin Bazaar in Savar on July 18.
Metropolitan magistrate Utpal Chowdhury has been asked to probe intothe incident and submit a report in 30 days.
Dhaka chief metropolitan magistrate AKM Enamul Haque instituted the probe into the incident in compliance with an order the High Court had issued on August 3, law ministry senior information officer Mizanur Rahman told New Age.
A High Court bench of Justice Farid Ahmed and Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif on August 3 directed the chief judicial magistrate of Dhaka to assign a judicial magistrate to hold the judicial inquiry into the incident of taking law into the hands and submit a report to the High Court in a month.
The bench issued the order after six young students of reputed educational institutions in the capital city were beaten to death by a mob of more than a dozen individuals of the locality at Amin Bazaar in the early morning of July 18.
It gave the directive after hearing a public interest litigation writ petition filed by Supreme Court lawyer and secretary general of the National Forum for the Protection of Human Rights Tajul Islam, challenging the government’s inaction during and after the incident, which sent shock waves across the nation.
The petitioner sought judicial inquiry into the incident.
The six victims, Sitaf Jabi Munif of Bangladesh University of Business and Technology.and Shams Rahim Shamam of Maple Leaf International School,
Tipu Sultan of Tejgaon College, Towhidur Rahman Palash, Kamruzzaman Kanto and Ibrahim Khalil of Mirpur Bangla College died on the spot.
Their families and friends said they had gone on an outing to Keblar Char when a mob attacked them saying they mistook them for robbers.
The villagers, however, said that the mob had surrounded the young students when they were allegedly were preparing to commit robbery.
Soon after the incident, police filed a murder case against 500 to 600 unnamed villagers.
But local sand dealer Abdul Malek filed a case of robbery against the six victims with Savar police station.
On July 28, the government ordered for recording the Amin Bazaar lynching case in the home ministry’s list of sensational cases.
On July 21, the government appointed an inquiry committee comprising four police officers, headed by deputy inspector general of police Mohammad Amin Uddin, following the previous order the High Court had issued on July 20.
The writ petition mentioned that the inquiry committee visited the spot of the lynching and recorded the depositions of some local people, all of whom were selected by the police officers of the local police station.
It also mentioned that the six students were beaten to death at Amin Bazaar in the presence of policemen.
The same bench on July 20 directed the home secretary, the inspector general of police, Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner, the deputy commissioner and superintendent of the police of Dhaka, and the officers-in-charge of the Savar and Ashulia police stations to explain in ten days why they should not be directed to take punitive action against the persons responsible for lynching the six students.
They were also directed to explain why their inaction and failure to protect the six young students of reputed institutions from the mob lynching should not be declared unlawful.
The bench also ordered the respondents to explain why they should not be directed to pay compensation to the families of the victims and to the survivors of the mob beating.
-With New Age input
