Another custody death puts Bangla police in the dock

The death of a 17-year-old garment factory worker in police custody in Chittagong has sparked a storm of protest across Bangladesh and put more pressure on the government for an immediate enquiry into police behaviour.

Ordinary citizens, students and human rights activists joined together at rallies and demonstrations while demanding exemplary punishment for the police officers responsible for this latest case of custodial death.

It follows an earlier outcry when Seema Chowdhury was gang-raped in a police station last October after she was arrested, along with her fiancé, near their village. Four policemen, including the officer in charge, were arrested in the case.

However, police brushed aside appeals from women's organisations and kept Seema in custody in Chittagong, pending investigations. But on February 3 she was rushed to Chittagong College Hospital where doctors in the emergency ward declared her dead on arrival.

The news triggered protests and demands that the country's rape laws should be amended to protect victims and to speed up the process of justice.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed had ordered an investigation into the circumstances leading to Seema's tragic death. According to press reports, a post-mortem examination showed the young woman had been tortured. Her teeth were found loose and there was blood on her nose. A police doctor was suspended, and a 12-member committee of parliamentarians and a member of the judicial investigation committee headed by a sitting high court judge had been appointed to investigate the suspected murder.

Initially, the police alleged Seema was a prostitute as they had in a similar incident two years ago when another teenager was raped and killed by policemen near Dinajpur town, 275-km northwest of the Bangladesh capital.

Infuriated crowds stoned the police station and eight people were killed when police opened fire. The situation was eventually brought under control by the paramilitary units.

Rokyea Begum, a women's rights activist, said the police regularly try and claim rape victims are prostitutes. ''Does this mean that the police have the right to rape a prostitute?'' she asked.

Women's organisations say there is an alarming increase in crimes against women. At a recent rally in Dhaka, the Sammilite Nari Samaj accused the police of ''targeting'' women, a charge that is confirmed by Kazi Abdur Razzak, president of the Bangladesh Human Rights Commission, who said police excesses are on the rise despite the return of democracy to the country.

Commenting on Seema's unsolved murder, a leading lawyer in Dhaka said, ''It works better for the criminals if the woman is gang-raped and even better if she is killed as she is the only source of direct evidence.''

Policemen are regularly implicated in rape cases, but not one has been even charged with the crime in the last 25 years. Like its South Asian neighbours, patriarchal norms dominate this conservative society. Women are treated as non-entities, particularly in the rural areas where the majority of the people live.

The law ministry said the number of cases involving crimes against women have risen in the 1990s. Most cases of divorce are filed by men, and the grounds for seeking an annulment are quite often flimsy: talking loudly in front of in-laws and failure to perform wifely duties quickly like serving food.

Bangladesh has enacted stringent punishment for horrific offences like wife-murder or in cases where women have been disfigured by acid thrown by attackers who were angry that they did not respond to their sexual overtures.

But there is a big gap between the law and its implementation. Obscurantist religious laws are still used by mullahs or Islamic priests in the villages to order the stoning of women accused of adultery, though their male partners often go scot-free.

And in rape cases, the poor among victims are often silenced by money, say rights organisations.

''The honour of your raped daughter will not be restored by filing a case against the rapist. Better take some money and go home,'' was the advice of a village chief to a poor farmer whose daughter had been criminally assaulted by the son of a rich landowner in a village in Jamalpur district two years ago, according to testimonies recorded by the Sammilite Nari Samaj.

The government must revamp the police administration to make it more sensitive to the needs of ordinary people, was the consensus opinion of various women's organisations that were interviewed in Dhaka recently.

In addition, they said, more money should be spent on education and other programmes for the empowerment of women, which would improve the quality of life of the people and raise social awareness - all of which would contribute to safeguarding the rights of both women and men in Bangladesh.

UNI