Family rejects charge sheet as CID drops name of OC Rafiq

Criminal Investigation Department (CID) pressed the charges against seven people in the Momin murder case at a Dhaka court on May 13 after one year and eight months of investigation.

Addressing a press conference at the Crime Reporters' Association in the city, Momin's father Abdur Razzak urged the authorities not to accept the charge sheet and demanded more investigation into the case by any agency other than CID.

The charge sheet will be placed before the court on May 21 for acceptance.

He said self-declared killers Zia and Jewel on September 26 in 2005 confessed to Rab 4 that they killed Momin, a Mirpur Commerce College student, for money at the directive of OC Rafiq, the prime suspect of the case. TV channels telecast their confession on that day, he added.

"Despite these evidences, OC Rafiq and his close associates were dropped from the charge sheet due to influence of high-ups and in exchange of a huge amount of money," the dejected father told the press conference. Rafiq, who was suspended from the post of officer in charge of Motijheel Police Station after the murder, was once posted at the CID where he was an influential officer, he alleged.

Razzak also alleged that he had repeatedly said earlier that an impartial investigation is not possible by Investigation Officer (IO) Kazi Abdus Sabur as he and other policemen assisting him in the investigation frequently visited the houses of the accused and took a huge sum of money from them.

He said the IO did not confiscate the videotapes and transcripts of the confessional statement of 'killers' Zia and Jewel. Besides, the IO did not mention in his charge sheet about the investigation report of the then deputy commissioner (West Zone) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, which had found OC Rafiq's involvement in the killing. Moreover, the IO did not collect the evidence of intimacy between Momin's another suspected murderer Mintu and OC Rafiq, rather tried to damage evidences by killing Mintu in crossfire.

The charge-sheeted accused are Hasibul Haq Jony, Tareq alias Zia, Babu alias 'Thotkata' Babu, Shakhawat Hossain Jewel, Zafar, Monir Hawladar and Habibur Rahman. Of them, Monir and Habib are still at large while the rest are in jail.

Momin, 18, was killed by a gang of criminals in front of his house in Kafrul when he was going to college at about 9:15am on September 13, 2005.

Following the incident, Momin's father Abdur Razzak filed a murder case with Kafrul Police Station accusing OC Rafiq and 25 others.

OC Rafiq was sent to jail on October 16, 2005 when he surrendered to a Dhaka court seeking ad interim bail in connection with the killing. Since then, OC Rafiq has been in jail custody.