It was a robbery that caused quite a sensation in Manikganj almost 15 years ago.

A gang of masked robbers stormed the house of one Habibur Rahman in Sidhunagar of Ghior upazila around 15 minutes past midnight on June 30, 2006. He and some of his family members were watching a World Cup football match at the time.

The robbers shot Habibur, killing him on the spot and wounded four others before making away with Tk 2.31 lakh in cash, gold ornaments, and other valuables from the house.

Moktar Hossain, Habibur's brother, filed a case with Ghior Police Station against 15 to 16 unidentified robbers the next day.

Eleven years later, a Manikganj court acquitted all the charge-sheeted accused in the case.

The Additional District and Sessions Judge's Court in its verdict delivered on April 18, 2017 observed that sloppy investigation and a faulty charge sheet were among the reasons behind acquittals of the accused.

This is not the only incident of such sloppiness in case investigations.

The majority of the offenders go unpunished and move freely largely due to the absence of witnesses or contradictory testimonies given before courts, sloppy investigation, and improper recording of confessional statements, according to legal experts and senior law enforcement officials.

Khurshid Alam Khan, a criminal law expert, said he thinks between 70 to 75 percent of robbery cases see no conviction.

This is backed by a report of the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI), which found an alarming 77.33 percent of robbery cases ended up with no conviction between 2016 and 2017.

The incident in Ghior is a perfect case in point.

The complainant mentioned the number of robbers in the case statement around 15 to 16. But the investigation officer (IO) submitted a charge sheet against 31 people, which the court found to be unbelievable.

The court said such a large number of people would not go to commit a robbery in a neighbourhood.

Then came the flaw in the confessional statements made by three of the accused under section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). The statements were not produced before court as per the provision of the Evidence Act by the prosecution.

The judge remarked that none of the three accused gave confessional statements involving themselves and those were not supported by any other witnesses' depositions. So, with such statements, no one could be proved guilty.

Though the prosecution named 19 witnesses in the charge sheet, they could produce only 11 during the trial.

None of the witnesses named any of the accused in their depositions. There was also no claim or proof that the suspects were accused or convicted in any other robbery cases, the court said.

LOW CONVICTION RATE

The PBI report, published by the specialised police unit in September last year, paints a grim picture of the reasons behind the low conviction rate in robbery cases.

PBI prepared the report after talking to judges and analysing 247 judgments delivered in as many robbery cases by 46 courts in district and metropolitan areas in 2016 and 2017.

It found that of the total 1,932 charge-sheet accused, only 11.75 percent were convicted.

Witnesses' absence in court, faulty and contradictory testimony by witnesses, failure of complainants and witnesses to identify the accused and recognise the arms used for committing offences -- all led to acquittals of the accused in 65 percent of the robbery cases that saw no convictions, according to the report.

The report also noted that the number of years it took to complete the investigation and trial in many cases led to acquittals as complainants and witnesses lost interest in giving depositions or gave faulty depositions due to the long delay.

An example is a street robbery case filed with Siddhirganj Police Station in October 1998.

While delivering the judgment in the case in August 2017, a Narayanganj court observed, "The overall review shows that the case had been going on for more than 20 years. During the period, none of the witnesses did turn up despite taking all procedures as per law."

The court further said, "Trial proceedings of any case cannot run for an endless period."

Eventually the accused in the case were acquitted.

In a judgment in a house robbery case filed with Araihazar police in Narayanganj in 1998, a court observed that the complainant and the victims of the robbery did not give depositions.

"So, the accused have the right to get acquitted as their involvement in the crime was not proved."

The PBI report, a copy of which was obtained by this newspaper, also found that 28.8 percent of cases led to acquittals due to faulty investigation.

In the cases studied, police took an average of one year and five months to complete their investigation -- with the highest being 11 years to complete a probe in a case while the lowest being 33 days.

Courts took an average of 10 years and 11 months to complete trials of the cases -- with the lowest time taken to complete a trial being seven months and the highest 27 years and nine months, the study revealed.

Khurshid Alam, who is also an ACC lawyer, said the prosecution has to take the responsibility. "The public prosecutors cannot avoid their responsibility as they often fail to prove the cases."

He said, "While the conviction rate is in the ACC cases is 77 percent, the prosecution cannot most of the robbery cases as they fail to seize evidence, recover looted goods and properly arrange test identification parades."

The PBI study also found flaws in seizure lists, test identification parades (TIP) and case statements, not scrutinising PCPR (previous conviction and previous record) of the accused, not arranging TIP of accused following due procedures, and not recording confessional statements of the accused under section 164 of the CrPC properly, among other reasons of the low conviction rate.

Taking to The Daily Star recently, PBI Chief and Deputy Inspector General Banaj Kumar Majumder said they used the research reports and findings during the training of sub-inspectors and inspectors who join PBI so that such mistakes are not repeated in investigations.

In its recommendations, the report suggested setting up of speedy trial tribunals in every district to dispose of cases quickly.

It asked the police to be more serious in producing witnesses before the court and ensure food and conveyance allowance for witnesses.

The report also suggested arranging training of investigators and trimonthly inter departmental meetings or workshops among investigators, investigation supervisors, magistrates and doctors.

[Our Manikganj correspondent Zahangir Alam Biswas contributed to this report]