Please - Odhikar

The Al Hera Hospital authorities informed Odhikar that on 11 July 2005 at around 3 pm, 4/5
people brought injured Hamidul to their hospital. Lot of saliva was secreting out of his mouth
but no sign of injury was found on his body. As soon as he was brought to the hospital, he was
given oxygen. Despite that, his condition continued to deteriorate and it was decided to send him
to hospital in Dhaka. A car was arranged for transporting him to Dhaka but for unknown
reasons, he was kept in that hospital. After half an hour, Hamidul expired.
Duty officer of Sripur police station, SI Faruque, told Odhikar that police went to that village to
arrest Dulal since there was an arrest warrant against him. As soon as police arrived there,
people inside Oli's house tried to flee. One of them, Hamidul, got injured after jumping out of a
window. Police arrested him and brought injured Hamidul to Al Hera Hospital where he died.
He denied any police torture on Hamidul. He claimed that Hamidul was a cardiac patient. SI
Faruque alleged that after Hamidul's death, his relatives and friends damaged some cars on the
Dhaka-Mymensingh Road and police dispersed them. Superintendent of Gazipur District Police
suspended ASI Delwar and ASI Abdul Halim for their alleged involvement in this incident. He
commented that the true reason of Hamidul's death can be known only after a post-mortem
report is available.
Two cases have been filed in the Sripur police station. Those are UD case no. 22, dated 11/07/05
and another law case no. 6, dated 11/07/05, accusing 8/10 people, including Hamidul.
A Youth Injured due to RAB Torture
On 17 July, there was a report published in the major national daily newspapers titled: 'A Youth
Injured due to RAB Torture'. Odhikar did a fact-finding of the incident and talked to the victim,
physician, police and eye-witnesses. The victim Abu Bakkar Sultan Bitan (33) has been working
as Executive Director of Harvest Group, a private business company. He is the youngest of 6
children of late Abu Bakkar Sultan of Satkhira. He is currently living in Uttara Residential area.
As has been revealed, on 15 June 2005 at around 7.15 pm, the victim Bitan along with some of
his friends was going to attend a religious function in Sector 4 of Uttara Residential area. On the
way at Jashimuddin Road, they got stuck in a traffic jam. Bitan got down from the car and found
three persons beating a car driver, which caused the traffic jam. He protested and became
engaged in a quarrel with those three persons. After sometime, two cars full of Rapid Action
Battalion (RAB) forces arrived on the spot. They blind-folded and handcuffed him and started
beating him. At one stage, they told him to run but he did not do that in fear of getting shot by
them in the name of crossfire. Many people assembled at the spot. Then RAB members took him
to the office of RAB-1. As soon as he got there he was beaten again. He was taken to the second
floor of the office and was beaten there several times. Several individual RAB members beat
him separately. All his belongings, including his cell phone were taken away by RAB. As a
patient of asthma, he used to keep an inhaler with him for emergency reasons and that was also
taken away by RAB. When he wanted the inhaler back, RAB members commented, "He will die
normally, we do not need to kill him by crossfire". At one stage of torture, he was beaten by a
steel rod and a hammer on various parts of his body with his legs and hands tied up. At a sudden
hit near his left knee, he was about to loss his consciousness. Then a man and a woman entered
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Report 2005