Police form probe body

The police on Thursday formed a three-member committee to investigate Wednesday's police action on BNP's chief whip, Zainul Abdin Farroque.

The probe committee, headed by DMP's additional commissioner Abdul Jalil, includes joint commissioners Shahidul Islam and Shahabuddin, according to an official of the home ministry.

'We cannot take action against any member of a disciplined force without due investigation, and so the Dhaka Metropolitan Police has formed a three-member body to probe the incident,' the state minister for home affairs, Shamsul Haque, told reporters on Thursday.

He claimed that the Awami League-led government had not exerted any political influence on the police.

The police beat up and seriously injured opposition chief whip Zainul Abdin Farroque on the Manik Mia Avenue near the Sangsad Bhaban on the first day of the two-day hartal called by Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies.

'The Awami League-led government is sensitive to leaders and activists of all political parties and others as well…The police have been trained by the governments of anti-liberation forces in the last 30 years to behave in this way,' said the state minister.

Shamsul on Wednesday said that the police had done their duty by checking violence and vandalism and protecting public life and property during the hartal.

He told reporters that deliberate provocation by the BNP leaders had led to police action.

He iterated that the authorities would take action if the police were found to have committed excess in dealing with the BNP lawmaker.

When asked why police lathi-charged the lawmakers and hit Zainul on his head without arresting any of them, he replied that the police could explain the situation better.

The BNP and its allies on Sunday called a nationwide 48-hour hartal, which began on Wednesday, in protest against the unilateral scrapping of the election-time caretaker government provision from the Constitution, and also to underline other demands.

Shamsul alleged that BNP had called the hartal to protect the sons of its chairperson Khaleda Zia from corruption charges.

Referring to the BNP's demand for resignation of the home affairs minister after the incident, he said that the BNP leaders were feeling uneasy after the government's efforts to bring to book the persons involved in the 10-truck arms haul case and the case of the August 21 grenade attack on an AL rally.

'It is very normal that they will now demand our resignation. They do not want democracy to flourish here,' he added.

Source : New Age

No comments:

Post a Comment