Bangladesh News

Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) is going to take actions against the complainants found to have lodged false cases with ill intentions of harassing innocent people.

The DMP has so far detected 22 such cases during investigations and has started the process of filing cases against the culprits.

A top DMP official told The Daily Star that they began the process to identify false cases in January this year aiming to check the practice of harassing innocent people as well as to reduce the burden of cases on the police.

He said that the courts have already accepted the final reports of those cases, which were proved ‘false’ during the investigation. “We will file cases against 19 complainants after receiving the acceptance letters of final reports of those cases from the courts concerned,” he added.

The final reports of the rest three cases will be submitted to the courts soon, the DMP official said.

Though section 211 of the Penal Code permits police to file cases against people lodging false cases, the enforcement of this law is virtually absent.

The section says: “Whoever, with intent to cause injury to any person, institutes or causes to be instituted any criminal proceedings against that person, or falsely charges any person with having committed an offence, knowing that there is no just or lawful ground for such proceeding or charge against that person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.

The section further reads: “And if such criminal proceeding be instituted on a false charge of an offence punishable with death, imprisonment for life, or imprisonment for seven years or upwards, shall be punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine.”

Of the 19 cases, three each were detected in Kotwali and Mohammadpur police stations, four each in Sutrapur and Pallabi police stations and one each in Demra, Badda, Shahbagh, Motijheel and Kafrul police stations.

Of those, 11 were filed in 2007, six in the last five months this year and the other two in 2006, police said.

Apart from the people accused in such false cases, police also have to face harassment, as these cases add up to their caseload.

In addition, the investigation officers also need to visit the place of occurrence and contact the complainants and witnesses as part of the probe, which waste time and energy of the law enforcers.

The DMP official observed that a couple of years back, there were around 6,000 cases under investigation with different police stations in the metropolis.

An investigation officer (IO) was even tasked with probing up to 50 cases at a time.

“The DMP authorities has undertaken a crash programme to bring down the number of cases under investigation to around 3,800,” said another top DMP official seeking anonymity. If the programme is successfully implemented, an investigation officer will not have to deal with more than nine cases at a time, he added.

Giving an example of false cases, the DMP official said that on January 18 this year, one Salma Begum filed a case with Sutrapur Police Station in the city against 50 to 60 people, identifying nine.

In the first information report (FIR), the complainant alleged that the accused broke into her house and took away gold ornaments and furniture.

The same day, a similar case was lodged with the same police station against the same accused by one Fazila Begum.

Later, the investigation found that the allegations were false and both cases were filed out of personal enmity.