Torture on DU student: HC upholds 3 yrs’ jail of ex-Khilgaon OC

Staff Reporter :
The High Court on Tuesday upheld the lower court verdict that sentenced former officer-in-charge of Khilgaon Police Station Md Helal Uddin to three years in jail for torturing former Dhaka University student Md Abdul Kadar in 2011.
The HC also ordered Helal Uddin to surrender
to the trial court concerned in three months after the judgement reaches the trial court.
The HC said if Helal Uddin, now on bail, does not surrender to the lower court, law enforcers can arrest him, said Deputy Attorney General Sarwar Hossain Bappi.
The HC Bench of Justice Fatema Najib delivered the verdict after rejecting a revision petition filed by Helal Uddin challenging the lower court verdict against him.
Victim Md Abdul Kader, who is now a lecturer of the Chemistry Department in Cumilla Victoria Government College, expressed satisfaction at the HC judgement.
Helal Uddin’s lawyer SM Shahjahan told that his client is yet to instruct him about the next course of action.
In the early hours of July 16 of 2011, some plainclothesmen from Khilgaon Police Station stopped Kader at Segunbagicha when he was returning to his dormitory from a relative’s house in the capital’s Eskaton area.
They beat Kadar, then a DU student of biochemistry and molecular biology, with sticks, according to the statement of the case filed by the victim in January 2012.
Later, police implicated Kader in three false cases filed with Mohammadpur and Khilgaon police stations. But following media outcry, the High Court on July 28, 2011, ordered police to probe the incident.
Three officials of Khilgaon Police Station, including OC Helal, were suspended and Kader was released from jail on bail on August 3, 2011. He was acquitted of all charges in 2012.
Then he sued Helal on January 23, 2012, for torturing him and filing the false cases against him.
On May 17, 2015, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Alamgir Kabir Raj jailed OC Helal for three years and fined him Tk 10,000, in default of which he has to serve three more months in jail. The court on May 31, 2015, sent Helal to jail on surrender.
Judge Md Zahidul Kabir of the Fifth Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court in Dhaka on July 27, 2016 upheld the trial court in this case. OC Helal filed the revision petition with the HC, challenging the verdicts against him.