A police officer allegedly beat up a child in Old Dhaka while in a separate incident five college students were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) on Thursday after allegedly being tortured by police following a confrontation over a trifling matter.
Asif Hossain Shifat, 12, was allegedly beaten by a sub-inspector (SI) of Gandaria police station after he allegedly clapped to warn a criminal the police were trying to catch in the old part of the city.
Shifat, a class 5 student of Ideal School in Narinda, was treated at a local clinic.
Witnesses said Shifat was playing with some friends in front of his house on Distillery Road in Gandaria. At one point, he started clapping, just as a police van came to a halt nearby.
SI Momin Hossain came out from the van and started slapping and hitting Shifat, the witnesses said. Momin also tried to take the boy away to the police station, but some local people stepped forward and stopped him.
Quoad Banu, the boy’s mother, said the police officer beat her beloved son for nothing. She said Shifat had gone deaf after the beating and could not hear anything.
“We took him to local doctors and they gave him medicine so he can recover from his injuries,” Banu said.
However, she could not say for sure whether her son’s hearing loss was permanent.
Meanwhile, SI Momin told the Dhaka Tribune that he had gone to the area to arrest a criminal, but Shifat helped the suspect to escape after warning him by clapping.
“I just asked him about the incident in a little hard voice, nothing more,” Momin said.
In another incident, five students of Dhaka College were allegedly beaten by police after they were prevented from passing the city’s Zero Point area on a rickshaw.
The students -Lelin, of the Psychology Department, Robin of Geography, Faruk of Management, and Tanif and Saddam of the English department- were being treated at the DMCH.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune at the government hospital, Lelin claimed they were returning to their college campus after submitting nomination papers for the cricket board elections on behalf of a candidate when Ansar members at Motijheel’s Zero Point stopped their rickshaw.
According to Lelin, the law enforcers claimed that non-mechanised vehicles were not allowed on that road. But, when the young men argued that they always took the road on rickshaws, the Ansar men replied that the road was briefly off-limits to make way for the prime minister’s motorcade.
The students then backed off and waited on the roadside, saying they were supporters of Chhatra League, the ruling party’s student wing.
Lelin alleges that after the PM passed through, the Ansar members, along with some on-duty police officers, forced them into a nearby police outpost and beat them, saying they were not allowed to raise their voices against law enforcers.
After half-an-hour of alleged torture, the students were released, but as they were badly hurt, they went to the DMCH for treatment.
Abdul Jalil, inspector (investigation), and Shirajul Islam, officer-in-charge of Shahabagh police station, later visited the hospital and took statements from the victims.
The police officials assured the students that the incident would be investigated and that action would be taken against anyone found to be involved.
