A group of traffic policemen beat up a rickshaw passenger in the capital’s Panthapath yesterday afternoon.
The passenger is called Md Mahiful Islam, 21, originally a resident of Jamalpur who works at a carpet shop in Dhaka’s New Elephant Road.
Around 2:15pm, Mahiful was on his way to the Farmgate area to deliver carpets to some clients.
After remaining static for a long time at the traffic signal at the Panthapath intersection near the Basundhara shopping mall, he requested an on-duty traffic constable named Kalam to let his rickshaw go.
But in reply, the constable started calling him names. When Mahiful protested, the constable pulled him down from the rickshaw and started beating him severely.
Three other constables on-duty in the same area soon came to the scene, took Mahiful inside the nearby police box and joined in the beating.
At one point, around a hundred pedestrians protested the incident, rescued Mahiful and took him to the Green Life Hospital on Green Road where he was given first aid.
The angry mob also tried to vandalise the police box. But Dhanmondi police station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Iqbal and Sub-Inspector (SI) Atik came to the spot after hearing about the skirmish and tried to calmed the situation.
The OC requested the mob to calm down but when they refused to go away, he also lost temper and order his troops to charge batons on the crowd. Some 10-12 people including Md Motahar, chef of the Health and Hope Hospital, was injured in the police beating.
In the meantime, Mahiful was brought back to the police box and he alleged that he had lost his purse and cash money when he was being beaten by the police constable.
He was then taken to the Kalabagan police station. However, when Dhaka Tribune contacted them, they said Mahiful had been released.
Dhanmondi OC Iqbal told reporters that he had ordered for the baton charge because the unruly crowd was creating a nuisance.
Police Sergeant Liakat, who was on duty during the incident, said that Mahiful had attacked one of the constables.
This is not the first time that policemen have beaten up a civilian in this area. A few days ago, three traffic constables beat up the driver of a CNG-run autorickshaw. After that incident too, police said the autorickshaw driver had attacked one of the constables.
When contacted, DMP Joint Commissioner Banaj Kumar said that they had identified the offenders and the process of taking action against them was under way.
