AFTER 27 days of imprisonment being wrongfully arrested by police, 19-year-old Rajan walked out on Monday. Police arrested Rajan Bhuiyan instead of Habibullah Rajan from the same village Gopalnagar, Brammanpara of Cumilla. The Dhaka Speedy Trial Tribunal ordered the Dhaka Central Jail authorities to set Rajan free. The tribunal also summoned Brammanpara police to appear before the court to explain why the police personnel would not be punished for unlawfully arresting the innocent. After the Jaha Alam case, we started hoping that one day will come when no innocent will stay in jail and policemen would be punished for arresting people illegally or without warrant.
The court observed that it was gross negligence of duty on the part of the police to arrest the innocent person (Rajan Bhuiyan). The court also prescribed three months’ jail sentence or a fine equivalent to three months’ salary to the policeman. Brammanpara Police Sub-Inspector Mamunur Rashid arrested the innocent person more than six years after the Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge of the 3rd Metropolitan Court in Dhaka on June 6, 2013, issued a warrant to arrest Habibullah Rajan. On November 7, 2019, the actual accused who lives at Mogbazar in the capital, surrendered before the tribunal to seek bail for the second time when innocent Rajan Bhuiyan was produced from the Dhaka Central Jail. On December 4, the tribunal would hear the second bail application of Habibullah Rajan, the fugitive accused in the narcotics case.
It is widely believed that several hundred people are wrongly imprisoned with false allegations in bailable cases. The number of such jail inmates is increasing day by day with the expansion of corruption by the politicised police force. A commission should be formed to check the jail inmates in a bid to identify the innocents who are serving jail term with or without trial. We think Rajan Bhuyian’s imprisonment is not an isolated incident. Rather, it’s a bright example of corruption of the police and the lower judiciary.
