<i>Tale of a scapegoat </i>
Joj Mia spent four years behind bars for an offence he did not commit. He had been falsely implicated in the August 21grenade attack case.
Now a free man Joj Mia also known as Jalal Ahmed faces another ordeal -- social stigma.
He could neither marry off his 19-year-old sister nor find a bride for himself because of the bad reputation he earned in the four years.
He tried several times in vain to get married. Guardians of brides refuse to accept him after knowing about his past, said the 29-year-old man, who now lives with his elderly mother, brother Babul and sister Khorsheda Akhter at Maispur in Gazipur.
He is yet to find a job. His younger brother, a fish trader, is the lone breadwinner of the family.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina promised him a job when he met her seven months back. But nothing has happened, said Joj Mia, who was released from Kashimpur prison on July 26 last year.
His mother had to sell their sole seven-katha plot of land at Senbagh in Noakhali for Tk 2 lakh to bear the expenses of two cases against him. One was filed in connection with the August 21 grenade attack and the other for possession of illegal arms and ammunition in 1998.
He was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment in the second case in 2005.
Joj Mia said informants Shipon, Babu and Kabir persuaded Abdur Rashid and Ruhul Amin of the Criminal Investigation Department to arrest him.
The informants took revenge on him for beating the three, who demanded protection money from him. Joj Mia with his father ran a scrap shop at Tejgaon at that time.
The CID investigators in the grenade attack case staged a farcical probe at the behest of the then BNP-Jamaat coalition government. They picked Joj Mia as the fall guy.
They also forced Abul Hashem also known as Rana and Shafiqul Islam to confess to their involvement in the August 21 grenade attack.
The then investigation officer Abdur Rashid, assistant superintendent of police (CID), obtained confessional statements from them. But questions were raised about the authenticity of the loosely crafted statements.
The government held back submission of the charge sheet based on Joj Mia's statement in the face of flak from various quarters and the media.
Allegations were rife that the government had been trying its best to divert the investigation to save the main culprits of the grenade attack on an AL rally on Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital. Twenty-four AL leaders and workers were killed and scores injured in the incident.
The CID later found in a probe that the statements given by Joj Mia and two other accused were false.
Joj Mia was freed from Kashimpur jail following a court order.
On March 30 last year, the CID filed a case against its former officials Abdur Rashid, Munshi Atiqur Rahman and Ruhul Amin on charge of misdirecting the investigation in the grenade attack case.
They have also been accused of destroying evidence and forcing people to give confessional statements.
The three investigated the case during the tenure of the BNP-led government.
Joj Mia was arrested from his village home at Senbagh in Noakhali in June 2005.
CID officials Rashid, Atiq and Ruhul Amin told him that if he gave statement according to their instructions, they would send him abroad and help his family financially.
The CID officials also gave his family Tk 2,000-2,500 a month after the arrest of Joj Mia, the lone breadwinner of the family at that time.
"The CID officials threatened me that they would make me a key accused in the case and have me hanged. So, I decided to work according to their instructions," Joj Mia said as to why he gave the false statement.
Ruhul Amin, Rashid and Atiq had earlier denied misdirecting the probe.
Comments