The government has formed two separate committees to withdraw politically motivated and other kinds of cases filed for harassing ‘political activists and innocent people’.
One of the committees has been formed at ministry level while another at district level.
A gazette notification, signed by Senior Secretary of Public Security Division under the Home Ministry Abdul Momen, was issued on Sunday asking all concerned to submit applications along with FIRs and charge sheets, if required, by December 31, 2024.
But the notice did not mention the time and cases which were filed for harassment.
The Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Adviser will head the six-member ministry level committee while the district magistrate will lead the four-member district level committee.
Other members of the ministry level committee are home ministry’s public security division senior secretary, additional secretary (law andorder) and joint secretary (law), representative from law, justice and parliamentary affairs ministry (not below the rank of joint secretary). Deputy secretary/senior secretary, assistant secretary, Law-1, public security division has been entrusted with the charge of member-secretary of the committee.
Members of the district level committee include police super (a deputy commissioner for metropolitan areas), public prosecutor (metropolitan magistrate for the cases of the metropolitan areas) and additional district magistrate (member-secretary).
The ministry level meeting will prepare a list of the cases appropriate for withdrawal after reviewing the recommendations sent from the district level committee and start the process for withdrawal of cases.
Apart from this, the committee will also prepare another list of the politically motivated cases filed under Anti-Corruption Commission Act, 2004 as these cases cannot be withdrawn sans the commission’s written orders as per Section 10 (4) of Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1958. The government will later decide the next course of action to this end.
In accordance with the gazette notification, all have been asked to file petitions with the district magistrate concerned by December 31, 2024 to withdraw politically motivated cases along with certified copies of FIRs (first information reports) and charge sheets if required.
The district magistrates will send the petitions to district public prosecutors (in cases metropolitan public prosecutors) within seven working days of receiving the applications while the public prosecutors will return the petitions with their opinions to the district magistrates within 15 working days.
Then, the district magistrates will place the petitions with opinion of the public prosecutors at district committee meeting within seven working days.
The district committee will suggest the government to withdraw the cases if they consider those cases are politically motivated or filed for other purposes mainly for harassment.
The district committee will finally send the recommendations, FIRs, charge-sheets in a specific chart, within 45 working days.
After the political changeover following the fall of Sheikh Hasina-led government amid a mass upsurge, some 300 cases were filed against the ministers of the Awami League-led government and leaders of AL.
The cases were filed against some 26,000 people and over 1.5 lakh unnamed people, accusing them of killing and torturing people during the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement.
Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled the country to India on August 5, is facing about 150 cases. Of those, 119 have been filed for killing.
Analysts already cast doubt over the fate of these cases, which were filed accusing so many people in a single case.
They say that the cases filed across the country seeking justice to the killing and torture during the July-August movement are similar to the ‘mysterious’ cases filed during the AL regime.
On behalf of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, a request has been made not to harass any innocent individual by filing such mysterious and dubious cases.
The Police Headquarters has already said that names of the people would be dropped from those cases, if anyone is not found involved with such incident.
Amid criticism, home adviser Jahangir Alam Chowdhury said that police, like in the past, were not filing cases.
“In the past, police used to file cases mentioning some 10 names while 100 others were kept unnamed. Now, police are not filing such cases rather the general people are filing cases,” he said.
The home adviser urged the people to file cases against the real accused so that any innocent individual cannot be harassed.
