Cops ignore rules of raid, arrest

In clear violation of the Criminal Procedure Code, detective police picked up six men at Purana Paltan in Dhaka on Sunday night and for 14 hours left their families in fear that they could be secretly killed or made to disappear.
The fear of the families was not irrational as there have been a few cases where criminals secretly killed or made people disappear.
The families went through the ordeal just because the detective police personnel failed to follow the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). They did not tell the arrestees why they were being arrested. Their families were not even told which law enforcement agency had made the arrests.
Detective police, in plain clothes, failed to show the arrestees the authorisation to arrest them. They conducted a search there without showing a search warrant or keeping locals or witnesses there, which the CrPC says is mandatory.
They did not notify the local police station about the arrests at 11:45pm at a bachelor's mess on the seventh floor of a nine-storey building in Paltan. Local police could not tell for hours whether they had been arrested or gangs had kidnapped them.
As relatives of the arrestees thronged the Detective Branch office gate to know of the whereabouts of the young men, they did not tell them that they had arrested their loved ones. Instead, a policeman at the gate merely told them to contact other law enforcement agencies or go to the court to see if the arrestees were there.
At around 2:00pm Monday, family members discovered them at the court as they were being produced before the court by the Detective Branch.
The court placed them on a one-day remand in a case filed on September 19 with Paltan Police Station in connection with preventing police from doing their duty.
Court sources said the arrestees are: Abdul Hakim, Azizul Haque, Humayun Kabir, Mohammad Jasim and Zahedul Islam.
Their families said the law enforcers had actually picked up seven men but they released one on the spot and another on Monday afternoon from the DB office.
On a visit to the Paltan building, this correspondent gathered from a security guard that around at 11:45pm seven to eight men knocked at the gate and claimed that they were policemen.
He said, “The men forced us to open the gate but they did not show their identity cards. They went upstairs and searched the mess of the youths.”
Later they saw the plain-clothed men emerge with the young men.
The policemen misbehaved with a man identifying himself as a photojournalist. He had taken photographs of the scene.
The guard said the policemen virtually vandalised the place in the name of conducting a search.
Section 56 of the CrPC clearly mentions that an officer who is deputed to make an arrest must show his/her boss's written permission to the arrestees before making the arrest. Section 103 says searches are to be made in the presence of witnesses. Section 103 (i) says two or more respectable locals must be present while the search is underway. None of these were followed on Sunday night.
A high-ranking DB official preferring anonymity said it was mandatory for policemen to inform the police station concerned before making any arrest. If it is not possible for some reason, the police station must be notified immediately after the arrest.
Arrestee Abdul Hakim's elderly freedom fighter father Haris Uddin came to know that his son was actually arrested and was placed on remand from The Daily Star correspondent around 8:30pm on Monday, almost a day later.
He had been in panic since noon that day after a relative called him and said his son had been taken away by some men who claimed that they were police.
Haris, who lives in Kishoreganj, said the Paltan Police Station could say nothing. He said his son, a masters' degree holder, was at the building just to spend the night at his friend's place and he was scheduled to have an eye surgery Monday morning.
Contacted by The Daily Star on Monday evening, the officer-in-charge of the police station said he had no knowledge of the arrests.
Former adviser to a caretaker government and former inspector general of police ASM Shahjahan said, “If the government introduces a telephone call system to verify police personnel making arrests, such untoward situations will be checked and criminals will not be able to kidnap people in the guise of law enforcers.”