Police involved in Santal attack: Judicial probe

File photo: Prothom Alo

Some locals and on-duty law-enforcement agency members were involved in setting fire to the houses of the Santal community during an eviction drive in Gaibandha, says a probe report.

Chief judicial magistrate of Gaibandha M Shahidullah submitted the probe report to the High Court on Monday, reports news agency UNB.

A two-member HC bench comprising justice Obaidul Hassan and justice Krishna Debnath is likely to hear the probe report on Tuesday.

In the report, the probe body said it was seen after analysing the video footage of Al Jazeera TV that some policemen and two civilians actively took part in torching the houses of Santal people.

There were some other policemen standing in a short distance playing the role of spectators and they did not try to douse the fire, the report said.

The probe body said witnesses could not identify those involved in the arson attack.

On 14 December 2016, the High Court directed the chief judicial magistrate of Gaibandha to investigate to dig out whether the police had any involvement in setting fire to the houses of the Santal community.

The order had come following a supplementary petition filed by Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) attaching some national and international media reports and images, where police were seen to set fire to a house, seeking the court order to carry out an investigation to identify the arson attackers.

The court had also directed the police to conduct the investigation giving the two cases -- filed on 17 and 26 November against 600 people and 33 people respectively over the same issue -- same status.

It instructed the deputy inspector general (DIG) of Rangpur Range of the police to give the charge of the investigation to a senior officer of the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) under the supervision of a police official not lower than the rank of superintendent of police (SP).

A new video on the arson of Santal dwellings was aired in a number of media. The video shows police are torching Santal shanties. But police denied the allegation.

The video is about three and a half minutes long and it shows a group of policemen are approaching the Santals' slum firing blank shots. Three of them reached a shanty and wrecked its fence and then one of them set fire to it.

Some plainclothes policemen also helped them in the arson incident.

The fire spread from one hut to another and the police were walking around, and some of them were firing blank rounds. No one of the police members tried to put out the fire. The police were guarding both sides of the place while flames engulfed the abodes.

Three Santal men were killed and 30 people, including nine policemen, injured following a clash with law enforcers and workers of Rangpur Sugar Mills in Gobindaganj upazila on 6 November.

The clash broke out when workers of Rangpur Sugar Mills along with police went to Bagda Farm area to reclaim land of the sugar mill allegedly occupied by the Santal community.