Death in Custody: Police Hands Over Sumon’s Body to Father

The body of Sumon Sheikh alias Rummon, who died in Hatirjheel police custody early Friday, has been handed over to his family by police.

Police handed over the body on Monday a day after his family claimed that they did not receive the body as police gave them a condition to take it directly to their village home instead of taking it to anywhere else.

An assistant staff of Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital morgue told UNB that police received the body from the morgue completing the formalities around 3 pm but none of his family members were present.

Faruque Hossain, Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan police media wing said, “The body has been handed over to Sumon’s father and he will be buried at his ancestral home in Nawabganj or at Azimpur graveyard.”

Meanwhile, Sumon’s wife Jannat Akter along with other family members went to Dhaka Metropolitan magistrate Court to file a case over his death in police custody.

Jannat’s brother Mosharraf Hossain said they did not receive the body and police might have handed it over to his father.

“My sister is ill. We went to court to take advice from the lawyer to file a case over Sumon’s death,” he said.

Sumon’s family members on Saturday claimed that they did not receive the body of Sumon as police gave them a condition to take it directly to their village home instead of taking it to anywhere else.

However, police said the body was not handed over as they did not get appropriate guardian to receive it.

Postmortem of Sumon Sheikh alias Rumman, the accused in the case of theft of Hatirjheel police station, was completed in absence of his family members at the mortuary of Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital on Saturday night.

Family members said after the autopsy, the police asked to take the body to Bhola, but they denied receiving it as they wanted to take the body to Sumon's residence in Rampura Mohanagar project first.

A General Diary (GD) has been logged by the police in this incident.

Earlier talking to reporters at Hatirjheel Police Station on Saturday evening, Azimul Haque said a case was filed with Hatirjheel police station in connection with stealing of Tk 53 lakh from the office of Unilever's Pureit Company on August 15.

Police arrested three people identified as Al Amin, Sohel Rana and Anik Hossain in connection with the incident. They are now in jail. Sumon Sheikh was identified by analyzing the CCTV footage of the place of occurrence and also interrogating the three arrestees.

Later, police arrested Sumon from his house in Rampura Mahanagar project area on Friday afternoon and recovered Tk 3,13,700 from his possession. Then he was kept in police custody around 11 pm, he said.

Rumman Sheikh, aka Sumon, was supposed to be sent to the court on Saturday morning. But he hanged himself from an iron grill with the trousers he was wearing at around 3:32 am on early Saturday.

It was seen in the CCTV footage and this footage was also shown to the deceased's wife and relatives, said police

SI Hemayet Hossain, who was Duty Officer on Friday night, and constable Md. Zakaria have been suspended for negligence of duty.

Besides, a three-member inquiry committee headed by Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADC) Tejgaon Industrial Zone Hafiz Al Farooq has been constituted.