A year after death, BNP man 'hurled bomb' on police!
Jasim Uddin was sued a year after he had left the world here. For, the police records suggest, the man from Chattogram city hurled bombs on law enforcers on 10 October 2018.
On 10 October 2017, a 45-year-old Jasim Uddin died of dengue fever, said his family.
Jasim Uddin is named among 18 activists of the Bangladesh Natonalist Party's (BNP's) Chattogram city unit who, the police claimed, attacked them with explosives in Rajakhali intersection of Bakilia police station.
The police station’s sub-inspector SM Jamal Uddin implicated the 18 BNP men and 15 more unnamed people in the case on the same day (10 October), the first anniversary of death of Jasim Uddin.
In the case statement, the police alleged that leaders and activists of opposition BNP gathered in Rajakhali intersection to carry out what they called subversive activities over the verdict in 21 August grenade attack case delivered on the day (10 October).
While the police tried to disperse the protesters, they hurled crude bomb in the police men and fled the scene, the police said.
Two persons named Ali Akbar and Md Harun who were named as witnesses to the incident, said said they knew nothing about it.
Local people and family members of Jasim are shocked to see inclusion of a dead man as an accused in the case.
“A man is not spared from the police even a year after his death,” Lokman Hossain, a local resident, said expressing his anger at disrespect shown to 'someone who is no more here'.
Asked how a dead man was sued, Pranab Chowdhury, officer-in-charge of Bakalia police, explained that the names were included based on the statement given by one Helal Uddin, who was arrested from the scene during the incident.
However, some local police officials said, on condition of anonymity, that the cases are being filed against the BNP men in various localities at the behest of the police headquarters.
Some 360,000 opposition men have been implicated in over 4,000 ‘fictitious cases’ filed throughout the country in the past one month, the BNP alleged. Already, around 4,600 of them have been arrested.
A number of dead persons, the ones who were staying abroad or in Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj, some seriously ill persons and even jailed ones have been reportedly sued, mainly because they were associated with the opposition BNP, a registered political party that was voted to power a number of times.
When contacted, deputy commissioner (south) of Chattogram Metropolitan Police SM Mostain Hossain said they will drop Jasim’s name from the case after investigation.
* This report, originally published in Prothom Alo print edition, has been rewritten in English by Galib Ashraf