Post-poll Violence of 2001
1,500 cognisable offences recorded, says probe body
Cases were filed against nearly 25 percent of the incidents of post-poll persecutions but most of those could not be investigated properly due to interventions of politically influential people linked to the then government
The investigation commission on the post poll persecutions of 2001 yesterday said it recorded 1,500 incidents of cognisable offences, which could expose some 5,000 people including former ministers and lawmakers to justice.
“We have recorded some 1,500 cases of cognisable offences so far . . . these could expose more than 5,000 people to justice,” commission Chairman and former district and sessions judge Muhammad Shahabuddin told the news agency.
He added that complaints were still being received from grassroots while the commission officials were scrutinising them.
The government last year constituted the three-member commission in line with a directive of the High Court, which also had ordered submission of its report by December 31 this year.
Additional Deputy Inspector General of Police Mir Shahidul Islam and home ministry's Deputy Secretary Monwar Hossain Akand are two other members of the commission, which recorded the complaints and gathered evidence through spot visits and interviews of victims at its office in Dhaka.
Four police officials were also appointed later to assist the commission.
“We have carried out the investigations without any prejudice . . . we will advice the government to take required legal steps against the offenders and their patrons as they could be tried under the ordinary law,” Shahabuddin said.
The commission chief, however, said they were exposed to different types of difficulties while unearthing the truth regarding the incidents that took place nine years ago. “But we expect to submit our report within the (extended) deadline of December 31, this year.”
The High Court on May 5, 2009 issued the directive, asking the government to constitute the commission on a writ filed by right watchdog Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh to investigate into offences like murders, rapes, lootings and arsons following the 2001 elections.
The writ said thousands of people, many of them belonging to religious minority communities, were subjected to inhuman repression and persecution after the 2001 general elections that brought the BNP-led four-party coalition government to power.
Shahabuddin said the commission, during spot visits, recorded testimonies and complaints of critically tortured people and relatives of those who were killed. “At times it appeared to us the incidents of persecution blurred any past events of brutality.”
He said cases were filed against nearly 25 percent of the incidents of post-poll persecutions but most of those could not be investigated properly due to interventions of politically influential people linked to the then government.
“The commission will recommend reinvestigation of the cases and filing of cases which were not recorded earlier,” Shahabuddin said.
Beside the spot interviews, he said the commission reviewed reports of different rights groups, media reports and other publications.
These included a people's investigation commission report by Nagarik Adhikar Sangrakkhan and Sampradayikata Pratirodh Committee, Nirjataner Dalil-2001 by Sammilita Samajik Andalan, and the three volumes of Politics of Vengeance authored by the then Leader of the Opposition in Parliament and incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and a report by Hindu Buddha, Christian Oikyya Parishad.
Commission officials recalled that several of the victims said the hell apparently came down on them soon after the elections while he referred to one such incident when one of them, Abdul Bari of Jessore alleged that his support for Awami League cost both his legs as the then ruling party activists crippled him for good.
His two sons were also critically injured for their family's political affiliation that prompted them to celebrate Awami league's 1996 election victory staging a feast for villagers by slaughtering two cows.
“I had to get both my legs amputated while my son is still suffering from his wounds,” Barik told the commission.
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