Woman’s Death in Cop Custody: Family wants judicial probe
Family members of Yasmin Begum, who died in the custody of Gazipur police on early Wednesday, yesterday demanded a judicial probe into the death saying they have no faith in the police investigation.
"Police beat up my sister after failing to find her husband on Tuesday night… How could police investigate the same murder?... They will be biased. We want a judicial probe, we want justice," Yasmin's younger brother Jahangir Hossain told our Gazipur correspondent yesterday.
Manjur Rahman, deputy commissioner of Detective Branch (DB) of police in Gazipur, however, said Yasmin was arrested with 120 yaba pills and taken to the DB office in the city. She later fell sick and was taken to the hospital where doctors declared her dead.
Gazipur Metropolitan Police on Wednesday formed a three-member committee led by its additional commissioner Md Azad Mia to investigate the incident.
Meanwhile, rights body Ain o Salish Kendra yesterday said to ensure justice, an independent inquiry committee, including experts other than members of law enforcement agencies, is a must to investigate deaths in custody.
Talking to this newspaper yesterday, Jahangir alleged that police personnel charged batons on their relatives when they asked law enforcers the reason for beating her sister to death.
Police, however, denied the allegation of charging batons.
Victim's son Yasin Arafat Jisan yesterday said, "There is no case against my mother who used to run a poultry farm…To protect themselves, police are now trying to present my mother as a drug peddler."
Yasin, quoting those who bathed his mother before the funeral, said that the body had numerous marks of bruises.
Jisan said they would soon go to the local police station for filing a case against the police personnel involved.
According to the family, about 4-5 men in plainclothes, who introduced themselves as DB officers, showed up at their home in Bhawal on Tuesday evening and said they were looking for his father Abdul Hai over allegations of drug dealing against him.
When he and his mother told them that Abdul was not at home, they started beating her up and took her in custody, he said.
Around 11:00pm, Jisan received a phone call from someone who told him that his mother had fallen ill and had been taken to Gazipur Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmad Medical College Hospital.
Going there around 1:00am on Wednesday, he found his mother dead.
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