Court orders further probe by CID
A court in Gobindaganj upazila of Gaibandha on Monday ordered Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to conduct investigation of the case filed over the killing of three Santal people, and torching and looting their houses in Bagda Farm area of Gobindaganj on November 6 in 2016.
Judge Partha Bhadra of Gobindaganj Senior Judicial Magistrate’s Court passed the order after accepting a naraji (no-confidence) petition of filed on behalf of Santals on September 4, against the Police Bureau of Investigation’s (PBI) charge sheet.
“Gaibandha PBI in their final charge sheet submitted on July 28 this year dropped the names of 11 main accused of the November 6, 2016 incident,” said Advocate Sirajul Islam Babu, one of the lawyers who were present on behalf of the Santal community during the third hearing of the naraji petition on Monday.
“Through our naraji petition we urged the court to include the main accused including former MP Abul Kalam Azad, Abdul Awal, former managing director of Rangpur Sugar Mill, its former general manager Abdul Mazid, Abdul Hannan, former UNO of Gobindaganj, Shubrata Kumar Sarkar, former OC of Gobindaganj Police Station, Mahbubur Rahman, sub-inspector of DB police, constable Sajjad Hossain and Rezaul Karim Rafik, chairman of Katabari Union Parishad.
“The court accepted our naraji petition and ordered the CID to conduct further investigation in the case that Thomas Hembrom filed on November 26, 2016 against 33 named and 500/600 unknown people who allegedly attacked the Santal Palli, set fire on their makeshift houses, looted their properties and killed three Santal men on November 6, 2016,” said Sirajul Islam Babu.
On that day, more than 2,000 Santal and Bangalee families were ousted from the “disputed” Sahebganj-Bagda farmland under Gaibandha’s Gobindaganj upazila, where Rangpur Sugar Mill was established during the Pakistan period.
The eviction took place following a violent clash between the dweller families, mill employees and police. Three Santal men were killed and 20 others, including nine policemen, injured in the incident.
On behalf of the Santal and Bangalee communities, Thomas Hembrom filed a case with Gobindaganj Police Station against 33 named and 500-600 unnamed accused on November 26, 2016.
But the charge sheet submitted by Gaibandha PBI on July 28 this year dropped the names of 11 prime accused in the case, said Santal leaders, adding that the charge sheet did not include name of any police officials although a video footage of the attack showed their involvement and two cops were suspended in 2017, following a police investigation.
“Through our naraji petition we appealed to the court to include the 11 prime accused in the PBI charge sheet, but the court ordered the CID to do further investigation. We are afraid that verdict of the case will now take much longer time,” Zafrul Islam Prodhan, secretary of Sahebganj-Bagda farm Bhumi Uddhar Sangram Committee, told The Daily Star after Monday’s court order.
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