UPDATE (Bangladesh): Torture victim Santa and her husband are under extreme death threats

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) calls for your immediate intervention to ensure the security of torture victim Mrs. Shahin Sultana Santa and her husband Mr. Atinur Rahrman, who are under severe death threats now. Mr. Atinur Rahrman is also a lawyer in his wife’s case. We were informed that the criminal who made death threats to the couple is about to be released on bail on Sunday (February 25, 2007), after allegedly bribing the magistrate and the police. He had again made a phone call to the couple from jail, threatening to kill Mr. Atinur when he is released. Mr. Atiur and Mrs. Santa fear that their lives will be in great danger when Jafor is discharged and released from Jail. Mr. Atinur has gone into hiding to save his life. Please immediately write to the Bangladesh authorities and urge them to take immediate measures to ensure the safety of the couple.

UPDATED INFORMATION:

To briefly summarize the case, Mrs. Santa, who was pregnant at the time of incident, had been severely beaten by the police in Dhaka on 12 March 2006  and implicated with false charges. Since, she and her husband have been pursuing the cases against the police officers responsible for the incident (See further: UA-105-2006). The couple has also received several death threats and the witnesses of the case have also been allegedly harassed. The AHRC has issued several appeals regarding the repeated threats to Mrs. Santa and her family as well as the government’s inaction into her cases. Please refer to: UP-058-2006, UP-062-2006, UP-083-2006, UP-096-2006, UP-101-2006, UP-112-2006, UP-114-2006 and UP-181-2006.

According to the latest information we have received, Mrs. Santa’s husband Advocate Atiur Rahman received a series of death threats from a local criminal namely Jafor Mollah.

On 24 January 2007, Jafor Mollah called on Mr. Atiur’s mobile phone and asked for Taka 500,000 (USD 7,500) and threatened that unless the claimed amount was given, he would kill Mr. Atiur and his wife Mrs. Santa. He also intimidated that he would forcibly take possession of Mrs. Santa’s fisheries project in the Satila village under Uzirpur police station of Barisal district. Mr. Jafor asked Advocate Atiur to bring the money to the Supreme Court Bar Association building the following day.

On January 25, Jafor along with a group of gangsters came to the 2nd floor of the Supreme Court Bar Association building to take the money but Advocate Atiur refused to pay it. Jafor left the place threatening to kill him and his wife.

On his way back from the Supreme Court, Jafor was arrested by a team of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)-1. On January 26, the RAB-1 became sure of Jafor’s involvement of number serious crimes like murder, robbery, toll-collecting, illegal possession of arms. For further legal actions the RAB-1 handed him over to the RAB-8, which is responsible for the Barisal area where Jafor hailed from.

However, it is alleged that due to tremendous political pressure the RAB-8 officials handed over Jafor to the Uzirpur police, who produced him before the Magistrate Court under section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, instead of making specific charges against him. Section 54 to “the arrest without warrant”.

Advocate Atiur alleges that Jafor threatened him telephone while Jafor was in the Uzirpur police custody for three days. When the police remand was over, Jafor was shown arrested under Atiur’s case (No. 39) with Shahbag police station. The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s (CMM) Court of Dhaka then ordered to send Jafor to the Dhaka Central Jail.

Now, Jafor is making death threatening phone calls to Mr. Atiur from jail. Mr. Atiur also alleges that Jafor and his allies have declared that the Investigating Officer (IO) Sub Inspector (SI) Mr. Khairul 
Islam has been bribed to submit a Final Report that suggests the withdrawal of the charges against Jafor.

Regarding this matter, Advocate Atiur submitted separate applications to the Chief Adviser Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed’s office, to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), the Commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) and the Officer-in-Charge (OC) of the Shabag police station on 22 February 2007. Mr. Atiur also appealed the authorities to change the IO of his case. He says that Jafor and his group claimed tolls from him on several occasions, and threatened and harassed the staff of Mrs. Santa’s fisheries project (45 acres of land) in their village home.

Jafor told Mr. Atinur that he is on the way to ensure his bail from the CMM Court by bribing the Magistrate with more than one million Taka and then he will finish “the operation”, which means doing harm to Advocate Atiur, his family and their properties.

Due to these series of threats from Jafor and his groups, the partisan role of the police and inaction of the related administrators involved in the legal procedure of this case, Mr. Atiur is hiding in fear of his life.

He alleges that because of his cases against the police officers who were responsible for torturing his wife Shahin Sultana Santa on 12 March 2006, the officers of the law-enforcing agencies have neither become fair to investigate his cases regarding the torture to his wife nor any of the cases regarding the safety and protection of his and his wife’s life and property which has been vulnerable day by day.

His bail application is scheduled to be taken up at the Metropolitan Magistrate of Dhaka on Sunday.

It should be noted that Jafor has been charged in number of criminal cases: a). G R Case #  68/04 of the Uzirpur police station dated 24-05-2004 under section 302 and 34 of the Penal Code (for murder), which is under trial at the Session Judge’s Court of Barisal (Session Case # 88/05); b). Session Case # 715/83 under section 302 and 34 (for murder) of the Penal Code, which is also under trial at the Session Judge’s Court of Barisal; c). G R Case #  6/93, under section 302 (for murder) of the Penal Code, of the Kotalipara police station of Gopalganj district; d). Launch robbery case # 3 dated 20-8-1990 under section 395 and 398 of the Penal Code with the Agoiljhara police station of Barisal district; e). G R Case # 548/2000 under section 466 and 467 (for cheating) of the Penal Code with the Kotwali police station of Barisal district; f). G R Case # 25/2000 under section 7, 9(1) and 30 of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act with the Uzirpur police station of Barisal district; and the recent case lodged with the Shahbag police station of Dhaka regarding the claiming toll and death threat to Advocate Atiur Rahman (Case # 39, dated 29-01-2007, under section 385 and 506 of the Penal Code).

SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please write to the relevant Bangladesh authorities listed below and demand their urgent intervention into this case.

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