Please - Odhikar

A Medical Officer of Mymansingh Medical College, under condition of annonymity, said that all
the injured people had marks of fighting and bullet wounds on their bodies. They were all under
treatment. One official of the postmortem team told Odhikar about the bullet injury found in the
body of Nabi. The postmortem was done in the Kishorganj district hospital. A local grocer,
Sobdar Ali was also an eyewitness to that firing incident. He stated that when the firing started,
he found Nabi dead by a bullet hit in the abdomen.
Acting Officer-in-charge of the Karimganj police station, Anisur Rahman said to Odhikar that he
filed a case as a plaintiff against Dr. Mijanul Haq with 40 others as the accused and 5-6 hundred
anonymous persons as accused as per the complaint (case no. 9, date: 07/02/05). It was filed
under the sections 147/148/149/323/325/326/332/333/353/307/302/427 of the Penal Code. He
also said that one of the accused, Suruz Mia, was an Awami League leader and had been arrested
and kept in custody.
About the allegation of not handing over the dead body to the family of Nabi, the police stated
that Rahima Khatun, mother of the deceased and other villagers were allowed to see the dead
body and took part in the funeral prayer. He did, however, agree that police officials supervised
it all.
Additional Police Superintendent of Kishorganj, Jaynal Abedeen, informed Odhikar that since
the two meetings were arranged at the same time and in places very close to each other, there
was high probability of clashes and for that reason the administration assigned magistrate
Amirul Islam, Fazlur Rahman and TNO K.M Ruhul Amin along with 60/70 police, including a
reserve force, to maintain discipline and keep any unexpected situation under control.
Jaynal Abedin also alleged that the former MP of the Awami League took a procession of 2/3
thousand people with sticks and while passing through the meeting of BNP they threw stones
and bricks at them and that instigated the clash. The magistrates and the TNO with 20/25 police
were also injured during the clash. At one stage, when the situation went beyond control, the
Magistrates ordered to fire. The Additional Police Superintendent also added that at first police
lobbed 50 rounds of tear gas, fired 150 rounds of bullets from shot guns and finally fired 39
rounds of bullet from rifles. A case was filed in the Karimganj police station and an
investigation was going on.
The arrested activists of Awami league, including Dr. Mijanul Haq, received bail from the High
Court on February 22, 2005. They filed two cases in the cognizance court. One murder case was
filed against the officer-in-charge (OC) of Karimganj police station, Anisur Rahman; chairman
of Karimganj district BNP, Md. Rafikur Rahman; General Secretary Advocate Monsur Alam;
Senior assistant secretary Advocate Shafiuzzaman; BNP Secretary of Gugadia Union Nurul
Islam; Secretary of BNP student wing of Karimganj Shafikur Rahman with 81 other accused
along with 100/150 anonymous people. Dr Mijanul Haq was the plaintiff of the case. Another
case was filed against 46 anonymous people and the plaintiff of the case was one Abul Hashem.
Report 2005
95