Family members of Ishtiaque Hossain Jonny, who was brutally tortured to death in police custody in 2014, are yet to get final justice from the High Court, due to the lengthy legal tangles in disposing of related appeals.
In this column and through our reports, commentaries and editorials, we have repeatedly stressed the need for accountability of all public institutions run by taxpayers money. Of them, the accountability of law enforcement agencies is most important. For, of all the institutions in a modern state, it is only the police force that is assigned lethal weapons legally and empowered by law to kill citizens, of course under clearly laid down conditions. But they have the power to kill. Each and every one of them is a potential 007, licensed to kill. Because they have the power of life and death over us not to mention the power to detain, question, threaten, enter premises, confiscate, torture, etc. they need to strictly adhere to the highest standards of their own procedure and their code of conduct.
Jonny’s Murder in Custody: Fugitive convict ‘selling drugs’ in Pallabi
Ishtiaque Ahmed Jonny
Five months have passed since the delivery of the verdict in the case filed over the murder of Ishtiaque Hossain Jonny in police custody, but two convicts are still eluding arrest.
Much to the disappointment of the victim s family, Russell, one of the two absconding convicts, is running drug business in Rahmat Camp area of the capital s Pallabi which is less than half a kilometre away from the victim s house, said locals.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a local youth said Russell visits the area once in every two to three weeks with drugs in a motorcycle and leaves after collecting the money earned by his men from sales of yaba pills and other drugs.