All the staff, including the security personnel, have been found responsible for the torture and death of three inmates last Thursday in the Juvenile Development Centres (JDC) in Jessore, according to the probe committee.
The departmental investigation committee has recommended deployment of new staff in Jessore JDC, replacing all the current staff.
On Thursday, five correctional officials tortured a number of youths of the centre, leaving three of them dead and 15 injured.
The investigation report is scheduled to be handed over to the director general of the Department of Social Services (DSS) by Thursday.
Sources involved in the investigation said the incident took place between 12pm to 1:30pm. However, none of the staff, including the security members, informed their line managers about the brutality.
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The three juveniles were sent to hospital after their deaths were confirmed. And only then, the department of social services, police, and other agencies were informed of the matter, the investigation found.
Both the juvenile centre officials and security personnel are being held responsible for not sharing the incident with the seniors.
Besides, Abdullah Al Masud, assistant director, Masum Billah, probation officer, Mushfiqur Rahman, psychosocial counsellor, Omar Faruk, technical instructor, and AKM Shahanur Alam, physical instructor, who are also accused in the case, have been remanded for questioning.
On the other hand, Abdullah Al Masud, caretaker of the centre, has already been suspended.
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The probe report said that there are 22 inmates who are above 18 and are now by definition, not juveniles. A few of them are very loyal to the JDC management officials and were being used to torture other inmates.
These inmates were received when they were below 18 years of age, but they are now adults. The committee recommended sending them to jail.
The probe committee also found negligence and irresponsibility of the security personnel – who were brought from the paramilitary force, Ansar – as they did not inform their supervisors or police while the torture was being carried out.
Syed Md Nurul Basir, head of the probe committee, said: “We have investigated mainly three issues – How did the incident happen; Why it happened; and who are responsible.”
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“As it is a departmental investigation, we have also focused on the internal problems of the centres,” Nurul Basir, also the director of the Department of Social Services (DSS), told Dhaka Tribune.
“We have drafted a series of recommendations to prevent such unpredictable brutality in the future, and improve the management system,” he added.
The report suggests, to deploy at least one on-call doctor for JDC, to develop advanced modality for operating JDC, to improve counselling and motivation systems, revise the manpower structure, increase the budget and building capacity of the all staff working inside the JDC.
The probe committee also suggested removing overcrowding as inmates have a previous history of crime, and shift the victims and accused, in the incident, to the JDC in Gazipur.
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Jessore JDC was established around 30 years ago for correcting 150 child offenders but there are now around 286 juveniles. Of them, 18 are victims and seven are accused for the recent incident.
The committee has recorded interviews of the assaulted juveniles, their guardians, office staff, security personnel, and witnesses to finalize the report.
Another probe committee requests a week to submit report
Apart from the DSS probe committee, the district administration was asked to form a separate three-member committee on Friday following the instruction from the Ministry of Social Welfare.
They were asked to submit the report in five working days. However, on Wednesday, they requested the ministry to extend the submission period by another week.
Social Welfare Secretary Mohammad Jainul Bari said: “We are finding out the problems of the juvenile correction centers in order to operate them smoothly.”
“It appears that there are some major problems or some irregularities. If not, such a big incident would never have happened,” he told Dhaka Tribune.
“Our probe committee have already visited the Jessore juvenile centre, and I will also visit the centres at Gazipur on Saturday to find out problems,” he added.
It is to be noted that the Social Welfare Ministry formed a three-member committee on Friday, a day after the incident, to investigate the matter. They were asked to submit their findings in five working days.
Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BSAF) condemned the killing and demanded that the government take strong actions over the matter.
Our Jessore correspondent Tauhid Zaman contributed to this report
