Yet another Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader died in jail custody in Rajshahi on Monday with the BNP, condemning the death, saying that its leaders and activists are at risk of death in prisons.
Md Monirul Islam, 52, a local BNP leader at Kakonhat municipality in Godagari upazila of Rajshahi, died in Rajshahi Medical College Hospital, jail authorities said.
Rajshahi Central Jail deputy jailer Hanif Ahmed told New Age that Monir, who had been in the jail since November 7 in a case filed under the Special Power Act and the Explosive Substances Act, suddenly fell sick on Monday morning.
The jail authorities first took him to the prison hospital from where he was referred to RMCH as his condition deteriorated.
He was then taken to RMCH at about 10:25am where he died at 11:00am.
RMCH director brigadier general FM Shamim Ahammad, however, said that Monirul was brought dead at the hospital’s emergency department at about 11:00am.
Meanwhile, Golam Mostafa Mamun, a member of Rajshahi district BNP, demanded a proper investigation into Monirul’s death on suspicion that his death was not natural.
Earlier on Thursday, Abul Kalam Azad, 47, joint secretary of Hatiandaha union BNP at Singra in Natore, died at RMCH about noon, nine days after he was admitted to the hospital in jail custody.
On December 1, Asaduzzaman Hira Khan, a BNP activist from Gazipur, died in Kashimpur Central Jail, one of the country’s largest high-security correctional facilities.
Three days earlier, another inmate, Golapur Rahman, 63, died under similar circumstances at the same facility.
Golapur, a BNP activist from Chittagong, had been in prison since October 28.
On November 30, Imtiaz Ahmed Bulbul, an activist from Dhaka, died six days after he was sent to the Gazipur prison.
On Monday, at a virtual press conference BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi alleged that the party leaders and activists are at risk of death in prisons.
‘Active BNP leaders and activists are being subjected to inhuman behaviour inside and outside the prison so that no one can say anything. The sick prisoner is kept in the prison hospital with chains on hands and feet,’ Rizvi said.
He said that political inmates are being tortured in an indescribably monstrous manner and they are virtually killed without treatment.
‘They [prisoners] are kept locked up day and night in suffocating prisons cells and made sick with such food which is suitable for cows and goats and thus they are pushed to death,’ he said, adding that the government and law enforcement agencies are making up stories to avoid responsibility.
‘Sheikh Hasina [prime minister] and her mafia prison officials cannot escape the responsibility of deaths in prisons. They must face justice for every murder,’ he said.
He said that the country’s 68 prisons have been transformed into torture cells, where BNP leaders and activists in good health are incarcerated in fictitious cases and released only after their death.
According to the Ain o Salish Kendra data, 93 prisoners died between January and November this year in police custody, marking the highest toll in recent years.
Rizvi mentioned that 65 people died in police custody last year, the majority of whom were BNP members.
Referring to media reports, Rizvi stated, ‘88,000 people are incarcerated in 68 prisons with a capacity of 43,000.’
