Cop who escaped from court held

A day after he escaped from police custody at a Dhaka court, a suspended police officer was arrested yesterday.

Rezaul Karim Patwari, a former sub-inspector (SI) of Kafrul Police Station, snuck passed court policemen at the Metropolitan Session Judge's Court in Old Dhaka on Sunday afternoon.

The incident happened moments after he was denied bail and ordered to be sent to jail in a case filed for the custodial death of a businessman in 2012.

An official of the prosecution division of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police yesterday said an investigation was underway against five court policemen over their negligence of duties. 

Police sources said Rezaul got out of the court premises that day without “minimum resistance” from the guards concerned as “they failed to recognise him as an accused”.

After the court ordered that the SI would be sent to jail, he approached the sentries, who had just taken the charge of the jail gate, showed them his identity card and got away.

He also had told the guards that he had gone inside to meet an accused, added the sources.

He was not in handcuffs.

Sources also said Rezaul was arrested after police assigned a lawyer who somehow convinced him to appear before the court, saying he would help him not to be convicted in the case over the murder of the businessman. But the suspended SI would have to face punishment for escaping.

Rezaul was arrested the moment he went to the court to meet the lawyer around 2:00pm.

Later, he was sent to Dhaka Central Jail in handcuffs.

A top police official said Rezaul told them that he fled that day without realising its consequence.

He also said the incident might cost the SI his job.

According to the case statement, Rezaul, another suspended SI Mohammad Nuruzzaman and their informer Babu alias Ratan picked up businessman Faruk Hossain Kamal on February 19, 2012, from his home in the capital's Kafrul area and demanded Tk 50,000 as ransom.

As Kamal's family refused to pay the money, the trio tortured him inhumanely while he was in police custody. He died later at a hospital.

Nuruzzaman and Ratan are in jail.