District committee gets 5 more days to probe Mushtaq’s death

The home ministry has given the committee formed by Gazipur district administration to probe the death of writer Mushtaq Ahmed in jail five more days to submit its report. The committee was supposed to file this report on Tuesday.

Another committee formed by the home ministry is planning to file their report on the same matter on Thursday, said sources.

The both committees spoke to prison authorities after visiting the Kashimpur High-Security Jail – where the writer died last Thursday. They, however, declined to share their findings with reporters, saying those will be detailed in the reports.

The home ministry's five-member committee, led by additional secretary Tarun Kanti Sikder, was formed to investigate whether the jail authorities' negligence caused the death of Mushtaq. The committee was asked to submit its report in four days.

"We are working to unearth the facts regarding this incident," Tarun told the media.

Gazipur deputy commissioner Tariqul Islam formed a two-member committee comprised of executive magistrates Mohamamd Wasiuzzaman Chowdhury and Umme Habiba Farzana on Saturday, and gave them two days to submit their probe report on Mushtaq's death.

Wasiuzzaman had also prepared the inquest report of Mushtaq Ahmed.

He said both the magistrates were busy with the local election in Kaliganj of Gazipur. "The committee formed by the home ministry also called us in Dhaka to discuss the matter. So, we had applied for a five-day extension to submit our report," he told the media.

Mushtaq died last Thursday evening at the high-security Kashimpur prison, where he had been lodged since August last year.

The writer, arrested in early May in a case filed with the capital's Ramna Police Station under the Digital Security Act, was denied bail six times.

Writer Mushtaq's death in jail has drawn large protests and condemnations in both home and abroad as rights organisations, civil society members and students' organisations termed the incident as "killing by the state."

The protests also demanded that the Digital Security Act be scrapped immediately and people arrested under the act be released.