BDR Carnage Case
Accused confessed without pressure
Says ex-magistrate
The ex-metropolitan magistrate Shamima Parvin, who recorded confessional statements of 32 BDR jawans in 2009 in Pilkhana carnage case, yesterday told a court that the jawans confessed their guilt willingly and without any pressure.
According to her deposition, she notified the jawans about the consequence of giving the statements and asked them if they were persuaded or compelled by physical and mental torture to give their confessions.
“I gave each of them about three hours to reflect on their decision of giving the confessional statements,” she said.
During the reflection period, the jawans were kept under vigilance of her office assistant, she said adding that hands of the jawans were not cuffed when they gave the statements.
Shamima Parvin told these while presenting documents of the confessional statements of 30 BDR jawans before the Metropolitan Sessions Judges' Court set up temporarily at the Alia Madrasa playground in the capital's Bakshibazar for holding the BDR carnage trial.
Earlier on Monday, she presented documents of confessional statements of two other jawans before the court.
The ex-metropolitan magistrate told the court that the accused jawans did not inform her about any torture during their remands.
Replying to the defence counsels, she said, “I asked every of them about torture in CID custody. But they (jawans) did not complain about any torture. For this reason I did not mentioned the issue in the form of the written statements.”
Citing statement of a sepoy Sumon Chakraborti, the defence lawyers told the court that starting time of the statement recording was not mentioned in the document.
There were no signatures of the magistrate and the accused on a page of the statement, they said.
But Shamima Parvin said she maintained all the legal procedures in preparing the papers of the statements.
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