Court upholds prison term for suspended police officer Helaluddin for torturing DU student

A court has upheld a three-year jail term for a Dhaka police officer, who had tortured a university student.

In July 2011, former Khilgaon Police Station (OC) Helaluddin detained Dhaka University student Abdul Kader and tried to force him to confess that he was a mugger.

Helal struck Kader’s leg with a machete after he refused to give in to pressure.

Kader later sued the police officer and in 2015, a magistrate court sentenced Helaluddin to three years in prison.

He challenged the verdict in the metropolitan sessions judges court, but the court upheld the sentence on Wednesday.

Helaluddin, who had been suspended after the incident, is now out on bail granted by the High Court.

Kader, who now teaches at a government college after clearing the Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) exams, said that he was satisfied with verdict.

“I hope no one else gets tortured by police officers like Helaluddin,” he told bdnews24.com.

Abdul Kader.

 

Police faced massive criticism after torturing in custody Kader, then a student of biochemistry and molecular biology, in 2011.

He was arrested on Jul 16 that year on charges of carjacking. The charges were proven wrong in an investigation launched following a High Court order.

The High Court also ordered suspension of OC Helaluddin, a sub-inspector and an assistant sub-inspector for torturing Kadar.

Kader filed the case against Helaluddin in January 2012.

According to the statement he gave in the court, police stopped him at Segun Bagicha when he was returning to Fazlul Haque Muslim Hall.

Plainclothesmen beat him in the leg with sticks and took him to Khilgaon Police Station, he said.

OC Helaluddin beat and injured him to force a confession, he alleged.

Having failed to make him admit to the crime he did not commit, the police officer struck Kader in the leg with a machete, he said.