Court sends former ASP arrested over ‘abduction’ of Sukharanjan Bali to jail
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A court has ordered former Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Fazlur Rahman to be sent to jail following his arrest in connection with the disappearance of Sukharanjan Bali, a witness for late Jamaat leader Maulana Delawar Hossain Sayeedi.
After a hearing on Friday afternoon, the order was passed by Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Mahbub Alam.
Fazlur Rahman was arrested from his residence in Dhaka late Thursday night by the Detective Branch (DB) of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police. On Friday noon, International Crimes Tribunal investigating officer Md Helalul Islam applied to keep the accused in custody until completion of the investigation. Accepting the plea, the court ordered him sent to jail. The accused, however, was not produced in the dock during the hearing.
According to the remand application, at around 9:30am on November 5, 2012, Sukharanjan Bali, a defence witness for Delawar Hossain Sayeedi, arrived by car with his lawyer in front of the main gate of the International Crimes Tribunal (Old High Court Building). At that moment, men in plain clothes dragged him out of the car and forcibly put him into a white double-cabin vehicle before taking him away.
The application states that the victim was kept blindfolded and subjected to physical torture for about two months in a dark detention facility. Later, after being held for five years in Dum Dum Central Jail in India, the matter came to light through Indian media reports. Bali’s son, Apurbo Bali, then travelled from Bangladesh to India and secured his father’s release on bail before bringing him back.
The application further says that during the investigation and based on direct evidence, it was found that on the day of the incident the accused Fazlur Rahman, along with other officers and force members, arrived in two double-cabin vehicles from the DB of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police and forcibly detained the victim from in front of the International Crimes Tribunal. He was first taken to the DB office, kept in custody, and later sent to India across the border. Sufficient evidence has been found linking the accused to the incident, prompting the investigator to seek his detention until the investigation is completed.
According to the allegations, Sukharanjan Bali, a resident of Pirojpur, went missing from the tribunal premises on November 5, 2012, after arriving to testify in favour of Sayeedi. At the time, law enforcement agencies claimed he had been found near the border. However, his family and human rights organisations have consistently alleged that he was picked up from the tribunal area itself. The incident sparked widespread public outrage across the country at the time.
Following the fall of the Awami League government on August 5, 2024, in a student–public uprising, Sukh Ranjan Bali filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office of the International Crimes Tribunal on August 21 of the same month. In the complaint, he alleged that he was forcibly disappeared and tortured for refusing to testify against Delwar Hossain Sayeedi and later for appearing as a defense witness on Sayeedi’s behalf.
The complaint names 32 individuals, including ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and former chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha. It also lists an additional 10 to 15 unidentified individuals as accused.
Those named include former chairman of the International Crimes Tribunal Justice Nizamul Haque Nasim, former law minister Shafique Ahmed, former state minister for law Kamrul Islam, former tribunal judge Justice A T M Fazle Kabir, former investigation officer Helal Uddin, and former Pirojpur-1 lawmaker A K M Auwal.
Meanwhile, Detective Branch (DB) chief Shafiqul Islam said Assistant Superintendent of Police Fazlur Rahman was arrested on the basis of a requisition from the International Crimes Tribunal.
Speaking to reporters this afternoon, he said the tribunal had sent a requisition, and Fazlur Rahman was arrested accordingly. He added that information obtained through the requisition indicated that while serving in the DB, the officer and his team were directly involved in the abduction of Sukh Ranjan Bali from the International Crimes Tribunal.
