A rape-murder of child, a lynching in hospital, a defamation suit: What happened after

On 21 March, a 10-year-old girl was on her way to school near Sagarika Road in Chattogram's Pahartali.

She was stopped by Rubel, a local. Rubel told her of some adorable kittens which were just nearby. She followed. And then, she went missing.

On Tuesday at noon, the child's mother filed a kidnapping case with the Chattogram Women Children Repression and Prevention Tribunal-2 after the local police station refused to register her case.

Advocate Zia Habib Ahsan told The Business Standard that the incident was captured in the CCTV video. He also added that when the matter was informed to the police, they didn't take the case and advised  the mother to go to court.

"Immediately after the incident, the matter was reported to the police station, but the police released the accused Rubel after questioning."

Eight days later, the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) recovered the child's body from a garbage pile and arrested the same man all the evidence had been pointing towards.

She was raped, strangled to death and then dumped in a garbage pile in the Pukurpara chicken farm area, PBI Chittagong Metro's Superintendent of Police (SP) Naima Sultana told The Business Standard.

"After her disappearance, the PBI started a shadow investigation. Rubel has been arrested in connection over the incident," Naima Sultana added.

Explaining why the police let Rubel go after bringing him in for questioning, Assistant Commissioner of Chattogram Police (AC- Pahartali Zone) AKM Mohiuddin Salim told TBS on Wednesday (29 March) that "Rubel did not admit the matter then".

"Later, when the PBI took him into custody and interrogated him, the truth came out, and he was arrested," he said.

"We failed to bring Rubel to justice," Pahartali Police Station OC Mostafizur Rahman told TBS

"Though we had seen the CCTV footage, we let him go as we did not have enough information to hold him at the time," he added.

The mother claimed she went to the police station immediately after her daughter went missing.

"If the police had been looking for my daughter, this incident would not have happened. I repeatedly told SI Dulal that Rubel is a suspect. But SI Dulal did not take my words seriously," she said.

A murder in hospital

On Sunday, Mamun, a tea stall owner, stopped by the Dhaka Shishu Hospital to meet his neighbour's daughter.

While there, he got into an altercation with some Ansar man. Mamun was then labelled a bicycle thief and beaten to death, allegedly by Ansar men, along with some others. 

Following a case filed with Sher-E-Bangla Nagar Police Station over the murder, Mamun's family were angered by what they claimed was a lack of justice.

Mamun's brother, plaintiff of the case, said the police did not arrest the main culprits.

"They're still showing up at the hospital and performing their duties. Police even changed the case statement and dropped many things we mentioned. Only the media can help us ensure justice," Masud said.

Twenty-fours later, the family, with Mamun's body before them, formed a human chain in front of the Dhaka Shishu Hospital. 

At the time, HM Azimul Haque, deputy commissioner of the Tejgaon division of police, told The Business Standard that two persons, including an ambulance driver, have been arrested in the case.

The case is being investigated.

Detention in the dark

Syed Golam Kibria, the general secretary of Ward-11 of the Dhaka North city unit Jubo League, was browsing through social media on his phone at 1:32am on Wednesday. 

At the time, he was in front of the Al-Razi Medical Services in Farmgate intersection.

This is when he came across a news item run by Bangla daily Prothom Alo. 

The news "hurt his sentiment". Kibria immediately set off for  the nearest police station in Tejgaon, which was around 100 metres away. 

Within 43 minutes, the case complaint was written, composed and Officer-in-Charge Apurbo Hasan recorded the case by around 2:15am of the same night.

Within an hour or so,  plainclothes CID men raided the Savar house of the journalist in question and detained him. 

He was taken to a Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court on Thursday.

Shamsuzzaman was shown arrested in the DSA case filed with Ramna police station and was taken to court around 9:30am on Thursday, confirmed Dhaka Metropolitan Police's Ramna Division Deputy Commissioner Md Shahidullah.