SP Kohinoor 'disappears'

Police failed to arrest suspended police officer Kohinoor Mian even five months after the home ministry suspended him following a criminal case filed in connection with beating up of a woman in Dhanmondi on March 12, 2006.
The suspension came on October 4 last year after a Dhaka court in September took a case into cognisance. Shahin Sultana Shanta with another Dhaka court on March 24, 2006 filed the case against 25 policemen.
In the complaint, Shanta said police assaulted and dragged her out of a clinic where she took shelter during a pitched battle between the police and the then opposition party activists in front of Rapa Plaza in the capital's Dhanmondi area. The incident occurred when she was going to pick her son from a school.
Along with superintendent of police Kahonoor, who was attached to the office of Rajshahi Range Deputy Inspector General, Additional DIG Mazharul Hoque was also suspended.
Inspector General of Police Nur Mohammad told The Daily Star yesterday that the two suspended police officials are now on the run.
Meanwhile, a high-powered departmental enquiry revealed that policemen led by then superintendent of police of Mymensingh Kohinoor opened fire on people at a polling centre in Nandail in 2004 without any provocation.
The police action at Achargaon High School polling centre in Nandail during the municipality elections on May 9, 2004 left Abu Taher and Sujan of the area dead.
Following the probe report, the home ministry issued a show-cause notice upon Kohinoor in newspapers asking him to defend himself. Earlier, a show-cause notice was issued to his address to which he did not reply, sources in the home ministry said.
If he fails to respond to the show-cause notice within the specified time, charges will be pressed against him and he will lose his job, the sources added.
Asked whether Kahinoor is drawing salaries, the IGP could not say for sure. However, an official at the police headquarters said he was not.
Seeking anonymity an official at the police headquarters maintained the internal enquiry report had said controversial police officer Kohinoor Mian, now on the run, sought to prove through forged documents that Sujan's father and Taher's wife signed affidavits claiming that they were not killed in police action.
The official said both denied before the enquiry committee that they had ever signed any affidavits. Substantiating the probe committee findings, Taher's wife told The Daily Star recently that she had never signed any affidavit.
Sujan's father Mohammad Ali, however, said he filed a petition with a Mymensingh court about 15 days after the killing of his son in which he mentioned that he could not identify the killers and would accuse none for the murder.
The three-member enquiry committee to investigate the police firing at Nandail was formed in June last year. The committee submitted its report to the police headquarters on November 6 last year, said the source.
"After thorough enquiry we have submitted the report to the police headquarters about 20 days back," Deputy Inspector General of CID Nazmul Haq, who led the three-member team, told The Daily Star on November 25. Two other members of the committee are Dhaka District SP Iqbal Bahar and Deputy Commissioner of Detective Branch of Police Monirul Islam.
The enquiry report said police opened fire during the municipality election without the slightest provocation. It also accused Kohinoor of misusing power and negligence in discharging his duty.
Nandail upazila vice-chairman, who was present there during the incident, said he along with some local Awami League leaders protested sub-Inspector Mosharraf Hossain's action after about 10 female voters alleged that police had forced them to return home without casting votes around noon.
SI Mosharraf left and a few minutes later he returned with some other policemen and started clubbing people, he said.
"In the blink of an eye Kohinoor Mian appeared and as Mosharraf told him something, he beckoned me and some other local Awami League leaders," Shafiqul said, adding that as soon as they went to Kohinoor he started punching them.
Shafiqul was arrested and taken to a room from where he heard two gunshots. "I did not see who fired but before police took me away I saw a revolver in the hand of Kohinoor who asked me to go away, otherwise he would shoot me," Shafiqul told The Daily Star.
Rezaul Islam, who was on-duty magistrate at Nandail municipality elections, told The Daily Star he did not order police to open fire and said the situation on that day did not call for police firing.
Rezaul Islam declined to make any further comment but said he had given his version in his statement submitted to the government at that time.