Locals say a woman and her one year old child were wrongfully arrested and sent to jail by the Department of Narcotics Control in Panchagarh.
Jhorna Begum was arrested with her child and sent to jail following a court order on Tuesday morning, confirmed Tetulia Model police station OC, Johurul Islam.
According to locals, the Department of Narcotics Control conducted an anti-drug drive at the residence of one Liton Miya in Premcharan village of Tetulia upazila on Monday.
When they arrived, Liton was not home. But they arrested his younger brother Khaza Nizamuddin instead, and assaulted his family members. Narcotics officials reportedly released Nizam for a bribe of Tk50,000. However, they planted a gun on Liton’s wife, Jhorna, and took her and her and her one year old child to the police station, say locals.
Jhorna’s husband Liton said: “On Monday, when I was out of the house, the department of narcotics control, raided my home and arrested my wife and my infant baby. If I was the suspect, and there was sufficient evidence to support the charges, they should have arrested me and not my family. This is obviously some sort of conspiracy.”
Liton’s mother Manjuma Begum said: “A female police official assaulted my daughter-in-law, Jhorna, and arrested her, saying she had a gun on her. We don’t know where the gun came from. They obviously planted it on her.”
Inspector Abdul Mannan of the district’s Department of Narcotics Control denied these allegations and said: “We conducted an anti-drug drive at Liton’s residence as he was on a list of drug dealers prepared by the prime minister’s office. We did mistakenly arrest his younger brother Nizam, but we released him soon after. However, when we found the one shooter gun in Jhorna’s possession, we took her in, along with her child and filed a case against her and Liton under the Arms Act.”
