Operation Clean Heart: HC releases full verdict scrapping indemnity law
The High Court yesterday released the full text of the verdict that scrapped the law legitimising the controversial criminal hunt -- Operation Clean Heart in 2003.
The court delivered the verdict on September 13 last year following a writ petition. The full text of the verdict was uploaded on the Supreme Court's website yesterday.
The HC in the verdict said the law does not permit the use of third-degree methods or torture of any accused in custody during interrogation and investigation in order to unravel the mystery surrounding an offence.
Protection of an individual from torture and abuse by the police and other law enforcement agencies is a matter of deep concern in a free society, read the judgment.
According to the HC, custodial torture is a naked violation of human dignity which destroys, to a very large extent, the individual personality.
“It is a calculated assault on human dignity. Whenever human dignity is wounded, civilisation takes a retrograde step. The flag of humanity must on each such occasion fly half-mast.”
The police are, no doubt, under a legal duty and have the legitimate right to arrest a suspected criminal and to interrogate him during the investigation of an offence, the verdict said.
Declaring the Joint Drive Indemnity Act, 2003 illegal, void abinitio (dead from the birth) and unconstitutional, the court ruled that any family members of the victims of the operation can file cases with the lower court against those responsible for torture and custodial death of their relatives.
The families can also seek compensation from the government through the High Court or any other court, said the HC bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Md Ashraful Kamal.
The BNP-Jamaat-led four-party government had passed the law to grant immunity from prosecution to all those who carried out the countrywide operation between October 16, 2002, and January 9, 2003.
Around 24,023 army and 339 navy personnel along with then paramilitary BDR, police and Ansar members were involved in the anti-crime drive.
As many as 57 people died in custody and hundreds were injured by torture during the operation, according to the writ petition.
However, the then government had put the death toll at 12 and claimed that all of them died of heart attack in hospitals after being handed over to police.
The joint force had arrested 11,245 people, including some 2,482 listed criminals, and recovered 2,028 firearms and 29,754 bullets.
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