Death of Psychiatric Patient: Rehab centre owner among 3 land in jail

Kamruzzaman Imon

A court here yesterday sent the owner and two staffers of a rehabilitation centre in Mirpur upazila to jail in a case for providing wrong treatment and mercilessly beating a college student who eventually died at the centre.

The accused are Abdul Matin, 54, owner of Samarpan rehabilitation centre, its supervisor Habib Uddin Malitha, 52, and staffer Mintu Hossain, 26.

Senior Judicial Magistrate Delwar Hossain sent the trio to jail when police produced them before his court after the end of their remand.

The deceased was identified as Kamruzzaman Imon,19, an honours student of Rajshahi City College. He died at the centre on November 20.

On November 28, police arrested the three. Imon’s uncle Sahajahan Ali Swapan filed a case with Mirpur Police Station against six staffers of the rehab centre.

The following day, police produced the arrestees before the court with a four-day remand prayer. On Monday, the court placed them on a one-day remand in the case.

During police interrogation, the accused said they injected Imon, son of Ezazul Azim Ripon, with sedatives to control him, said Abul Kalam, officer-in-charge (OC) of Mirpur Police Station.

They did not consult a registered physician for doing so and there was no full-time doctor to operate and supervise the centre, said the OC.

The police official suspects that wrong treatment was the cause of Imon’s death.

Authorities of the rehabilitation centre claimed Imon died from cardiac arrest, but a leaked CCTV footage showed a group indiscriminately beating Imon after tying his arms and legs the night before his death.

Upazila Health Officer Selim Uddin Farazi, who examined Imon’s body, said he found marks on the body which suggested that Imon was tortured before death.

Imon’s father Ezazul Azim said Imon had been suffering from schizophrenia. The family, at first, took Imon to Pabna Mental Hospital as his condition deteriorated.

However, they did not have the required documents to admit Imon there, so they admitted him to Samarpan on November 19, he said.

Meanwhile, the judicial magistrate in Kushtia ordered the exhumation of the body of Imon.

Following the court order, police on Monday exhumed the body from the graveyard and sent it to Kushtia General Hospital for autopsy. 

Contacted, the resident medical officer (RMO) of the hospital said the autopsy report has been sent to Dhaka and it will take about two weeks to get the result.