AN ATTEMPTED murder case against an eminent Supreme Court lawyer, also known for his role as a human rights defender in the past decades, for his alleged involvement in the July massacre is deplorable. A vegetable vendor in Dhaka filed the case against 180 people, including the Supreme Court lawyer ZI Khan Panna, on October 17 with the Khilgaon police over the shooting of his son on July 19. The plaintiff of the case has since told the media that he did not know the senior advocate and he had just signed the first information report while a lawyer prepared the list of the accused. The plaintiff has also filed a request with the police concerned asking to drop the name of Supreme Court lawyer from the list of the accused. Many speculate that he has been subjected to this legal harassment because of his criticism of the interim government on certain issues. Human Rights Forum Bangladesh, a platform for 20 rights organisations, condemned the false case and expressed serious concern because it suggests that the reckless legacy of the abuse of the legal system is continuing in the changed political context.
The tendency to file cases against a large number of named and unnamed accused, a practice that was normalised during the overthrown Awami Legue regime, is reported in August鈥揝eptember. Legal experts have been concerned about the filing of wholesale murder cases against the deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her aides and taking them in custody for interrogation on allegations of killings during the mass uprising. On a number of occasions, cases against deceased leaders and activists of the Awami League have been filed. The wholesale murder cases are a cause for concern because they carry the risk of turning the entire legal proceedings controversial, especially when eminent lawyers such as ZI Khan Panna, who was a member of the National Mass Inquiry Commission formed by noted citizens on July 29 and was among the lawyers who issued a statement condemning the use of excessive force on the student protesters, are falsely implicated. Such flawed and reckless filing of cases also created room for shielding the culprits behind the incident. There is, clearly, a need for an immediate intervention to ensure that cases related to the July massacre are filed with some caution, not the way when the plaintiff could neither identify the named accused nor the lawyer who drafted the first information report as evidenced in the case in hand.
All authorities concerned should, therefore, ask the police to be thorough and follow caution in filing cases related to the July massacre because falsely accusing a human rights defender and making the deceased accused in a case or wholesale murder cases is a procedural violation which carries the risk of making the entire legal process controversial. The Supreme Court should also consider instructing lower courts to review facts before taking cognisance of cases related to the July massacre.
