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Judicial Commission's Suggestions

Violence revisits as no step taken

M Rahman
Around three years ago, a judicial commission that probed the 2001 post-polls violence had made some recommendations to stop the recurrence of such atrocities, but the suggestions went totally unheeded.
"Had the government implemented our recommendations, the recent attacks on the minorities could have been prevented," said Mohammad Shahabuddin, chief of the three-member judicial commission who is now serving as a commis-sioner at the Anti-Corruption Commission.
The judicial commission recommended setting up an investigation committee or commission in each district to bring to book the perpetrators who killed 355 people and committed 3,270 other offences between October 2001 and December2002.
It also suggested forming a monitoring cell in the home ministry to coordinate the activities of the district investigation committees and providing legal assistance to the victims.
After this year's January 5 parliamentary polls, houses, business establishments and temples of the Hindu community were vandalised, torched and looted in Jessore, Satkhira, Dinajpur, Thakurgaon, Bogra, Chittagong and Rangpur which dislodged hundreds of Hindu people.
Since the submission of the commission's report on April 24,2011, the only step the government had taken so far was lodging 140 cases against some top BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, including Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, Joynal Abedin also known as VP Joynal, Nadim Mostafa and Matiur Rahman Nizami, said a top official of the home ministry.
However, the perpetrators of 2001 postpolls violence in remote areas remained at large, said several home ministry officials.
A top official of the ministry, wishing anonymity, said if the government had brought to book all the culprits of the 2001 post-polls violence, such brutality would not have happened.
According to the judicial commission's report submitted to then home minister Shahara Khatun in the presence of her deputy Shamsul Haque Tuku, the district investigation committees should be composed of additional district magistrate, additional superintendent of police and an executive magistrate.
These committees should be tasked with reviving the cases dropped by the BNP-led
four-party alliance government that came to power through the 2001 polls and carrying out thorough investigation to identify the culprits.
As per the commission's report, during the tenure of the four-party alliance, 409 cases had been filed in connection with the post-polls violence, out of which police submitted final reports in 145 cases.
Mohammad Shahabuddin told The Daily Star that his commission had identified around 22,000 persons involved in the violence. He, however, said the findings had not been incorporated in the report.
Several home officials said though the commission had identified almost all the criminals, the government mysteriously did not proceed with the findings.
Asked why, Senior Home Secretary CQK Mustaq Ahmed told The Daily Star that the report had been submitted long before his joining the office; so he did not know the situation in this connection.
State Minister for Home Shamsul Haque Tuku declined to make any comment when asked about this matter.
After a 16-month investigation that began in December 2009, the Shahabuddin commission revealed that more than 3,625 offences, including killing, rape, arson and looting had been committed by the then ruling BNP-Jamaat alliance.