THE officer-in-charge of Dhanmondi Police Station has admitted to handling a hot potato which he desperately wants palmed off now to other agencies for a reprieve. OC Mohammad Hanif who has been looking into the complaint filed on April 25 regarding forcible occupation of flats in a Lake Circus building by Sadiq Abdullah, son of chief whip Abul Hasnat Abdullah wishes to call it quits. In his assessment the matter has become ‘very’ sensitive' for him to deal with anymore. so that he would much rather see it transferred to other agencies, such as the DB. CID and the like.

What is there to be ‘sensitive’ about? It is a criminal case, pure and simple; all that he is required to do is to investigate the complaints and forward the case to the court with an arraignment of the accused. It sounds like a clear case of a whole series of criminal offences seemingly rendered more culpable by the allegation of highhandedness on the part of a son of a ruling party high and mighty. If accusations of illegal entry’, forcible eviction of a genuine tenant, unlawful occupation, intimidation, threats and violence do not constitute a criminal case worthy of investigation, what else would! The fact that the sibling of a ruling party high-up figures as the accused made it into another test-case for proving the government's bonqfldes about and commitment to equality before law and the whole question of rule of law as such.

The Dhanmondi thana OC's sensitivity’ plea to escape the responsibility of investigating the case may be more than Just a simple statement of fact. Anyone plumbing deep into his reaction is likely to come up with an opinion that he has had to yield under a political pressure to act in a particular way or not to act at all. Another Inference could be that he is unwittingly being a party to a delaying tactic foisted on him by vested quarters.

We have observed a certain police diffidence in entertaining the case despite the fact that it has been at the centre of media and public attention for quite a while now. In the first place, the police did not accept the complaint as an FIR but made a general diary’ entry of it. They arrested three ‘mastans’ but the principal accused remains at large. He Is issuing statements as his mother puts out threats to the police and expresses no confidence in them. A whole lot of case versions, six in number, have been diarised at the thana from April 26 to May 1, all of these tending to create an impression that law is being basically prevented from taking its due course through a thicket of confusion, as it were. The process is sought to be delayed and eventually thrown off course by guiles, if necessary, like in the cases of somewhat similar nature in the past. The fact of the matter in this case, however, is that it represents by far the most glaring instance of alleged high handedness by a kin of ruling party topbrass to-date. The public are watching which way it goes. One would, therefore, like to see the OC given full support to handle the case rather than being stonewalled in the discharge of his normal duties.