A recent study has unveiled that members of law enforcement agencies continue to abuse power under sections 54 and 167 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) along with widespread allegations of custodial death, torture and inhuman treatment in remand after arrests.
The research, conducted on 56 arrestees and their family members chosen randomly, found that police had not informed 33 of the arrestees why they had been arrested under section 54. At the same time, police also avoided answering queries of the arrestees and their relatives in this regard.
In some cases, police mentioned strict orders from superior authorities not to disclose the reason why the arrestees were picked up on suspicions. Moreover, in more than 90% incidents, police do not inform the family members of the detained individuals of the arrest.
The research also pointed out that when the detainees are remanded under section 167 of the CrPC, police inhumanely tortured arrestees by pouring hot water on them, applying electric shocks, beating them by hanging them against the wall or ceiling fan. However, some of them avoided being tortured by bribing the police officials.
The study, conducted by Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) with help of European Union, was revealed yesterday at a views exchanging meeting at the city’s Cirdap auditorium.
Speaking at the event, speakers in the meeting mentioned that country’s apex court on April 2003 delivered a landmark judgment after human rights organisations filed a writ petition in the High Court challenging abuse of power by police in arresting individuals without warrant and the abuse of powers regarding taking the accused into remand.
The High Court, in its judgment on the writ petition, observing that Sections 54 and 167 of the CrPC were not fully consistent with constitutionally guaranteed freedom and safeguard of the people and laid down a comprehensive set of recommendations regarding necessary amendments to both sections of the CrPC, along with the Police Act, The Penal Code and the Evidence Act, and directed that these should be acted upon within six months.
It also laid down a set of fifteen guidelines with regard to exercise of powers of arrest and remand.
However, both police officials and magistrates refrained from following the directives while the aggrieved people do not know about the directives.
“We filed the writ petition in 1998 after an Independent University student Rubel died in custody at Detective Branch of Police’s Minto Road office. The directives were delivered in 2003. But alarmingly torture and death in custody did not decrease, but increase,” said jurist Dr Shahdeen Malik.
“Now, police are been allowed to take the arrestees in remand on demand. Judicial magistrates have become subservient to the police,” he said adding that recently only some alleged war criminals enjoyed the fruit of the HC directive.
“Previously, relatives could trace the arrestees under Section 54, but now-a-days some arrestees just vanish before they are taken into the police station. Their bodies could be found later. Today, people call those ‘lucky’ who are produced before court after being arrested,” Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) Director Md Nur Khan told the meeting.
The study further asked 14 magistrate about the directives and of them 13 said they know the directives but only nine magistrates could remember the exact directives.
Besides, police deliberately avoid some directives, like depositing health examination certificate of the arrestees to the court before and after taking the arrestees into the remand. Out of 14 magistrate questioned, 11 said police does not do that.
The study also found allegations that police ignore orders of magistrates not to torture the arrestees in custody.
Countering the findings about the magistrates, Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate SM Ashiqur Rahman said magistrates allow arrestees to be quizzed under the custody of the investigation officer of the case, but that was not remand.
“If the arrestees report that they have been tortured in custody, we can take steps. Otherwise, we can not do anything.
“We always ask police to obey the high court directives and in remand order, we mention about the directives. And its not true that we allow all arrestees to be remanded,” he said.
Abu Sayed Khan and Advocate Tazul Islam of BLAST presented the keynote paper of the meeting.
