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Understanding the gigantic investigation

We still have pockets of excellence in our investigative outfits and it shall be in the fitness of things to allow such outfits to attain professional excellence without being tainted by any direction. Let the actual facts and circumstances of the incident be ascertained as is the job of the investigator.

Muhammad Nurul Huda
WHILE the trauma of the carnage at BDR headquarters continues to haunt and horrify, an understanding is gaining ground that this is no time for gimmickry. There is lot of work to be done efficiently and expeditiously in a polity where serious crimes having extremely far-reaching ramifications and have not been attended to in serious earnest.
Experts believe that the lack of confidence in the state s capability to properly investigate criminal offences may assume crisis proportions if we fail to book the real criminals with credible evidence.
Readers may recollect that a high-powered executive enquiry on the BDR incident is in process that has already sought three time extensions and optimists believe that the enquiry report may be available by the end of April. While that would be welcome news this writer is not sure how such an enquiry report would satisfy public queries about the culpability because to a court of law such reports have little or no evidentiary value.
Assuming that the trial of the accused persons would be held as per existing procedural law and in the light of our Evidence Act, it would be correct to say that to the court a report under section 173 of the Criminal Procedure Code following the definition of investigation as in section 2(h) of the same code and related sections would be acceptable for ascertaining the liability or otherwise.
It would, therefore, be relevant to know what such an investigation as referred to hereinbefore would entail. For an understanding, the investigation shall consist generally of the fact and circumstances of the incident, discovery and arrest of the suspected offender, collection of evidence relating to the commission of the offence; such collection may consist of the examination of various persons including the accused and the reduction of their statements in writing, if found fit, the search of places of seizure of things considered necessary for investigation and to be produced at the trial; and formation of the opinion as to whether materials collected warrant a charge sheet under section 173. In the light of the above stipulations, one may venture to look at the enormity of the investigative task pertaining to the BDR carnage. According to one media report, the number of accused persons, as of now stands at 1000 and so far 21 BDR personnel have given confessional statements. It is, however, not known how much of these statements are self-incriminating or otherwise.
A worrying feature of the incident is that there is no account of the sto-len/looted arms and ammunition from the BDR armoury during the mutiny and the carnage. Reports have it that during the course of the mutiny the registers of the armoury were burnt.
Members of the army and the intelligence agencies have reportedly recovered 3646 pieces of firearms that were found scattered at different places at the BDR headquarters at the end of the mutiny and those have been sent to CID for ballistic and fingerprint examination. Preliminary reports indicate the use of more than 2500 such firearms by the suspects.
The task of the investigation at hand is of unusual and mind-boggling dimensions. There are nearly one hundred places of occurrences to be properly studied, more than a few thousand persons to be interrogated, hundreds of materials to be scientifically tested and opined. The sheer paper work would run into thousands of pages. All these cannot be done hurriedly without prejudicing the investigation that has to stand the test of evidence.
It is also important not to start with a pre-conceived notion for it may lead the most zealous and smart investigators on a wrong track. A mind revolves over many theories when one starts on the investigation, but one theory can be as good as the other. However sure one may be of a thing, a close and detailed study should never be avoided.
Under the circumstances, we have to ensure that in upholding die public's right to be informed, a situation is not created where the entire process amounts to an investigation by the media. Such a scenario will seriously prejudice the rights of the victims and the interest of the prosecution because in our legal system the onus is on the prosecution to prove that the defendant/criminal is guilty beyond the least shadow of doubt. Let us remember that the anger, excitement and the euphoria will not be there at the time of trial before the court which will pronounce its verdict on the basis of cold facts and credible evidence.
In our harmfully polarised society where criminals enjoy political patronage, criminal activities are accorded respectability for so-called political compulsions and a loathsome all-pervasive distrust between different social and political groups prevail, the predicament of investigators who have the double jeopardy of being less-than- credible in the eyes of the law of the land and the members of public, can only be appreciated by a reasoned observer. A considered view is that our investigators suffer from inadequate scientific support but even under the present circumstances they can achieve commendable success. Our investigators do not operate in a favourable environment where helpful information comes voluntarily from members of public but still like our physicians they do good clinical investigation without laboratory support by virtue of their intuition, gut reaction and the limited information network.
We have to remember that viewing criminal occurrences from a political angle only will be ruinous because that
would not only be a damper to the growth of professionalism but also in the process shatter the remaining confidence reposed in the vital organ of the State.
We still have pockets of excellence in our investigative outfits and it shall be in the fitness of things to allow such outfits to attain professional excellence without being tainted by any direction. Let the actual facts and circumstances of the incident be ascertained as is the job of the investigator and let that be placed before the court for adjudging the guilt.
Muhammad Nurul Huda is a columnist of Pie Daily Star.