Jihad murder trial against 5 railway officials, contractor starts

Dhaka Special Court 5 Judge Dr Md Akhtaruzzaman made the order on Tuesday rejecting the discharge petition of the six. Attending the court they, however, claimed innocent when the charges were read out. Jihad's father Nasir Fakir and also case's litigant was present in the court that fixed October 18 to record the deposition of a total of 27 witnesses in the case. One of the accused is Jahangir Alam and Abdus Salam, owner of contractor firm SR House that installed the deep tube-well on the Shahjahanpur Railway Colony premises. The five Bangladesh Railway officials are Tube-well Inspector Md Jahangir Alam, Assistant Engineer Md Nasir Uddin, Electric Engineer Zafar Ahmed Saki, Shahjahanpur Railway Colony Assistant Engineer (power) Dipak Kumar Bhowmick and Assistant Engineer 2 Md Saiful Islam. On March 31, DB SI Md Mizanur Rahman submitted the charge sheet which was earlier rejected by the court duo to having flaws in the investigation. The corpse of four-year-old Jihad was pulled out from the 17-inch diameter deep tube-well by a band of volunteers around 2:45pm on December 27 last year, around 15 minutes after the fire service called off a nearly 23-hour search in the abandoned shaft. Doctors declared Jihad dead after he was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital and the victim’s father filed the murder case with Shahjahanpur police station. The complainant said the incident was the result of negligence by the contractor and the railway officials concerned as they had not sealed the pipe.