IN 2005 one Abdul Jabbar Fakir of Singpara village under Munshiganj’s Srinagar filed a rape case under the Special Tribunal for Prevention of Women and Children Repression in Munshiganj on 19 May 2005 against Mohammad Jamal Sheikh, who was already married and had three sons, as per a report of a local daily. He stated in details how Jamal took Fakir’s sister-in-law to his residence on North Lutfor Rahman Lane at Kotwali in the capital on May 4, 2005 on the pretext of returning Tk 10,000 he owed her. There Jamal raped the woman, who was also a distant relative of Jamal.
The case proceedings went on while Jamal was in Dubai for the whole time. The tribunal on June 30, 2007 sentenced Jamal to life in jail and fined Tk 10,000 or to serve another year of rigorous imprisonment in default.
Jamal, who was a manpower export broker, meanwhile managed to reach a deal with the plaintiff that Fakir would withdraw the case in exchange of a certain amount of money. But when he returned home in 2011, he came to know that he had already been awarded the jail term.”I then talked to my lawyer to determine the next step. He and I then convinced Nasir Uddin Khokon, a day labourer, to surrender before the court impersonating me,” Jamal claimed before the newsmen at Tejgaon Industrial Police Station. Jamal, now aged around 50, admitted that Khokon was fully innocent. Khokon was promised Taka 5 lakh for the job of impersonating Jamal.
Such impersonating is not impossible after the trial is over. What is disturbing is a lawyer was a party to the conspiracy. He must be one of those tout lawyers. Otherwise it is difficult to believe any lawyer will do such a crime against the justice system. What is more surprising is how such a lie remained unknown to police of the locality for so long. It is unbelievable that anybody desperately in need of money will agree to be in jail for life only for taka five lakhs and be away from the world outside. He must have been misled about the period of imprisonment. The story speaks about how uneducated people are victimized one way or the other. We want the lawyer concerned to be found out for subjecting him to punishment severely.
