Police yesterday submitted charge sheets against two persons including a railway official for causing the death due to negligence of four-year-old Jihad, who fell down an abandoned pipe in the capital’s Shahjahanpur colony last December.
The accused are Abdus Salam, owner of contractor firm SR House that installed the deep tube-well in the Shahjahanpur Railway Colony premises, and Jahangir Alam, senior sub-assistant engineer of Bangladesh Railway.
The two were made accused in the case for negligence in performing their duties properly, Inspector Zafar mentioned in the charge sheet. In legal terms it is culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
On March 8, Salam surrendered before a Dhaka magistrate court after the expiry of his four-week bail. The court sent him to jail rejecting his bail petition. Jahangir is on the run.
Inspector Abu Zafar of Shahjahanpur police, also the investigating officer of the case, submitted the charge sheet with the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court.
The body of Jihad was pulled put by a band of indomitable 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 17-inch diameter abandoned shaft.
Dhaka Medical College Hospital doctors declared Jihad dead when he was taken to the hospital. Jihad fell into the pipe, some 40 yards from his house, on December 26 while playing with friends.
Victim’s father Nasir Fakir filed the murder case with Shahjahanpur police against Salam and Jahangir. 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.
