The officer-in-charge of Savar police station was closed to Dhaka police line and two sub-inspectors, who were closed to the police line on September 11, were suspended on Monday as a police probe body found that the cops failed to discharge their duties properly during the Aminbazar incident in which six students were beaten to death on July 18.
The decision about the officer-in-charge, Mahbubur Rahman, and subinspectors — Anwar Hossain and Haris Shikder — was taken on the basis of the probe report submitted by the police inquiry committee on Sunday, said Dhaka additional police super Sheikh Rafiqul Islam, also the member-secretary of police investigation team.
‘We found them failing to discharge their duties in course of the brutallynching of the six students,’ Rafiqul Islam told New Age.
He said that departmental proceedings would also be drawn against the cops.
The four-member police inquiry committee, however, failed to identify the group of people who had killed the unarmed students, the committee member-secretary admitted.
The police investigation committee found that the cops stationed there failed to discharge their duties during the incident.
It also found that the victims were students, not robbers.
Earlier, a judicial committee also came up with similar findings.
The one-member judicial inquiry committee of
Dhaka metropolitan magistrate Utpal Chowdhury submitted the report to the Supreme Court registrar AKM Shamsul Islam on September 8.
In the report, the judicial probe body found that the six youths were innocent students, not robbers.
It also held the negligence of the policemen, who were on duty on the spot during the mob beating, including Savar police sub-inspectors Anwar Hossain and Haris Shikder, in rescuing the youths.
On September 11, police closed Anwar and Haris along with constables Habibur Rahman, Nazmul Hossain, Shohel Miah, Saidur Rahman, Shaheen Miah and Khairul Islam for their negligence in rescuing the victims.
Sitaf Jabi Munib, a student 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 were beaten to death by a group of people at Aminbazar in Savar early on July 18.
The lone survivor of the incident, Al Amin, told reporters that police had taken him to a hospital in Savar after he, being seriously injured in the beating, repeatedly requested them to save his life.
‘The policemen asked me to tell the media that we [the victims] went to Keblarchar to smoke cannabis at night,’ Al Amin had told New Age recently, adding that police were present during the beating and did not try to save the students.
After the incident, a local sand dealer, Abdul Malek, filed a case of robbery against the six victims and the lone survivor with Savar police station.
As Malek made different statements about the incident to different media after filing the case and the victims were identified by their respective families later on the day, Savar police filed a murder case against 500 to 600 unnamed villagers.
The police probe body and the judicial inquiry committee were formed following High Court orders issued on July 20 and August 3 respectively.
-With New Age input
