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Kalpana Chakma

The Rangamati superintendent of police yesterday once again did not submit to the court the re-investigation report on the abduction of indigenous community leader Kalpana Chakma 18 years ago.  
Asked why she failed to comply with the May 8 order of the district chief judicial magistrate's court, SP Amena Begum said she was yet to complete the tasks assigned by the court in the case.
This was the 11th time she did not submit the report after the court in January 2013 ordered a re-investigation into the abduction.
On June 12, 1996, Kalpana, the then organising secretary of the Hill Women's Federation, was kidnapped allegedly by some military personnel and law enforcers from her house in New Lalyaghona of Baghaichhari, Rangamati.
Her elder brother Kalindi Kumar Chakma filed a first information report with Baghaichhari Police Station hours after the kidnapping.

The SP yesterday told reporters that according to the court order delivered on January 16 last year, she had to complete four tasks -- rescue Kalpana; interrogate the accused, Lieutenant Md Ferdous Kaiser Khan and Village Defence Party men Nurul Haq and Saleh Ahmed; interrogate the witnesses and others linked with the incident; and unearth facts about the abduction.
"I have interrogated Ferdous and two other army officers who were with him [according to his statements] on the night [of June 12, 1996] at the Jugolchhari army camp,” Amena said.
She claimed she did not submit the report because she could not yet rescue Kalpana. She added that she, however, had made considerable progress in getting other tasks done.
Though the names of the alleged abductors -- Ferdous, Saleh and Nurul -- did not come up in the FIR, Kalpana's younger brother Lalbihari Chakma named the three as abductors during the subsequent investigations by the police and the Criminal Investigation Department and in an inquiry by a judicial committee.
Both the police and the CID did not interrogate the alleged abductors during their investigations and failed to reach a conclusion regarding Kalpana's abduction and her whereabouts.
The Rangamati SP, however, said she had come to know from a number of sources that Kalpana was still alive and was living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. “However, we could not verify the claims.”
Meanwhile, Kalpana's family prayed to the court to instruct the SP to submit a progress report on the re-investigation.
"The court fixed July 9 as the next submission date [of the re-investigation report]. If the report is not submitted within the period, the court would give an order for the submission of a progress report," said the family's lawyer Jewel Dewan.