Sagar Biswas :
Fate of several sensational cases, including the murders of Sohagi Jahan Tonu and Mahmuda Akter Mitu, have been facing uncertainty while police maintain dilly-dallying attitude in the investigation process.
There is widespread allegation that, many cases relating to violence against women have been suppressed because of interferences of influential quarters apparently responsible for the crimes.
The police could not make any progress into the murder of Mahmuda Khanam Mitu, 32, wife of SP Babul Akter though five months have elapsed in the meantime. She was killed near her house in Chittagong city on June 5 in front of her minor son. The law enforcers are yet to ascertain the motive behind the murder.
When contacted, Chittagong Metropolitan Police Commissioner Iqbal Bahar told The New Nation on Saturday night: “There is no progress at all about Mitu murder case. ….What you have heard earlier, it is still in the same stage.”
More than seven months have gone, but the investigation of Comilla Victoria College student Sohagi Jahan Tonu murder still remained a mystery. She was killed after rape inside the Mainamati Cantonment on March 20. But the law enforcers are yet to arrest any of the killers for reasons best known to them.
At a recent programme, Tonu’s mother Anowara Begum said: “Several months have passed … how long we will have to wait? Unidentified callers are threatening us almost often.”
When contacted, Comilla’s Superintendent of Police Shah Abid Hossain said on Saturday that Tonu murder case was not under his jurisdictions, the CID [Criminal investigation Department] can say well about it.
CID Chief of Comilla zone Barrister Mosarraf Hossain said that the investigation process was yet to finish, and so he, therefore, could not comment about it.
Not only that, there is no progress about the mysterious death of Afsana Ferdaus, student of architecture department of SAIC Institute of Management and Technology in Mirpur, despite severe protests by her colleagues.
The family of Afsana had accused one Robin, a leader of Chhatra League’s Tejgaon College unit, as ‘murder suspect’. Afsana’s brother Fazle Rabbi, who is a BCL leader in Thakurgaon, said his sister was a BCL activist herself, and she knew some BCL leaders. Someone of them might have killed her, he said.
In the latest incident, Khadija Akter Nargis, 23, a student of Sylhet Government Mahila College, was hacked indiscriminately allegedly by Badrul Alam, a Chhatra League leader of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology [SUST] unit on October 3.
Badrul was arrested, but the investigation procedure for submission of the charge sheet relating to the case is very slow despite enough evidences and eye witnesses.
A youth stabbed 14-year-old Suriya Akter Risha, student of Willes Little Flower School and College when she was crossing the street on a footbridge after her classes on August 26.
She succumbed to injuries in the hospital after two days. The killer ‘Obaid’, a worker of a tailoring shop at Eastern Mollika Shopping Complex at Elephant Road, was arrested and sent to jail. But police still did not submit the charge sheet.
Manzill Murshid, president of Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh, said about 12% cases relating to violation against women were not disposed and staying idle for many years because of interferences by influential quarters.
In this situation, trial proceedings cannot run and the cases cannot be disposed of quickly resulting to sufferings of the victims, he said.
