Awarding OC Pradeep police medals despite poor past record tarnished dignity of medals: Court

A number of 204 people became victims of extrajudicial killings carried out by Pradeep Kumar Das while he was the OC of Teknaf Police Station. 

The judge said it is important to note that a criminal has a constitutional right to receive justice, no matter how offensive the crime is. However, police officials like OC Pradeep Kumar Das have killed a large number of people in the name of so-called gunfights, disregarding the rule of law and the constitution. 

Despite his poor past record, the OC has been awarded the BPM, PPM medal of the police more than once which tarnished the dignity of the medal, the judge observed.

He termed the victims as robbers, drug dealers and human traffickers only to stage his crossfire dramas. He used to file a murder, a drug or an arms case against 30-40 relatives and neighbours of the victims of almost every murder, said Cox's Bazar District and Sessions Judge Mohammad Ismail in the 288-Page verdict of Major (retd) Sinha Md Rashed Khan murder case.

In the verdict, he said Major Sinha was the 205th victim of extrajudicial killings perpetrated by OC Pradeep Kumar Das.

The verdict said the state party submitted the exact names and addresses of 104 victims who were victims of OC Pradeep's crossfire during the hearing of the case. The exact names and addresses of the rest of the victims could not be submitted due to time constraints. 

It shows that OC Pradeep Kumar Das had been inculcating planned, conspiratorial and deliberately arranged events for a long time only to nurture the mentality and tendency to kill whomever he wanted, observed the court.

The state's lawyer has said the accused Pradeep (meaning lamp) is such a lamp under which there is only darkness. The court thinks that the above statement and claim of the state counsel is highly evidence-based and logical and has sufficient substance in it, the verdict added.

The reason six policemen were acquitted

About the acquittal of six policemen in the case, the verdict said these defendants, including themselves, have given confessional statements under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

No statement proves that they were involved in the killing of the Mjor Sinha, or they deliberately assisted. No witnesses have testified that the accused had committed any criminal act or were involved in any criminal activity at the time of the incident, it added.

In other words, these accused have been compelled to follow the instructions of the armed, deadly and insolent Inspector Md Liaquat Ali who illegally took charge of their workplace checkposts. Besides, their names are not in the statement of case. It is not proven that they had committed a criminal act voluntarily. Therefore, it has been decided that these accused should be acquitted of the charges against them in this case, the verdict said.

The court's statement about not taking Shipra's testimony

During the hearing of the arguments, the accused claimed that out of 83 witnesses in the chargesheet, only 65 witnesses had been presented to testify in court. They claimed that they were entitled to be acquitted for not bringing the rest of the witnesses in the chargesheet, including witness Shipra Debnath, the driver and assistant of the car carrying the body, the verdict said.

The verdict added that all the witnesses, including eyewitnesses, who were much-needed to prove the motive of Sinha murder, have been produced in court. Shipra Debnath is not an eyewitness to the incident and she was not included in the list of witnesses in the plaintiff's statement.