Child in Charge Sheet: 2 policemen withdrawn, 1 suspended

Two police officers in Dhaka's Mirpur zone were withdrawn and another was suspended for implicating a toddler and a dead man in a theft case.

Sazzad Hossain, officer-in-charge of Mirpur Model Police Station, and Mahbubul Alam, assistant commissioner of Mirpur zone, were withdrawn.

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Sazzad has been attached to the Armed Police Battalion of Khagrachhari's Mohalchhari and Mahbubul has been transferred to the in-service training centre.

Maruful Islam, a sub-inspector of Mirpur model police and the IO of the case, has been suspended, said a press note issued by the police headquarters yesterday.

Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Haque issued the instruction in this regard, Saheli Ferdous, assistant inspector general of police, told The Daily Star.

The case of Mirpur police implicating an 11-month-old toddler and a dead man in a case filed on June 26 last year caused uproar after it had surfaced in the media.

Rubel, who is now 11 months old, was just a new born child in June last year when there was an incident of unlawful gathering and theft in his neighbourhood.

But on February 27 this year, Mirpur police, after an eight-month-long probe, saw it fit to charge him with vandalising a house and stealing Tk 25,000, two gold chains and a mobile phone.

As if this was not absurd enough, Sub-Inspector Maruful Islam, investigation officer of the case, also pressed charges against a dead man.

Arifur Rahman died in 2013, three years prior to the incident, but was named in the charge sheet along with 21 others.

The police in the charge sheet even said Rubel and Arifur were on the run and appealed to the court to issue arrest warrants and an order for confiscating their property.

The actions of Mirpur police came to light after Rubel's father Abul Kashem, also an accused in the case, took the infant with him to the court on April 30 and explained before the judge what was going on.

Astonished by Kashem's statement, the court summoned the IO to explain why and how he had included Rubel and Arifur in the charge sheet.

The IO was supposed to show up before the court on May 6 and explain hid action but instead he submitted a 10-day time petition claiming to be sick.

Metropolitan Magistrate Khurshid Alam on Tuesday ordered him to appear before his court on May 16.