Earlier this week, the death of a young man in police custody in Faridpur raised allegations of torture by agitated locals. According to the Detective Branch of police, they had picked up the 27-year-old around 3:00 am on Sunday, allegedly for possessing cannabis; when he fell ill around Fazr time, he was sent to hospital, where he died. The family differed about detention timing and alleged custodial torture, following which a committee was formed to investigate the death.
This sequence aligns with what is by now a well-worn script that has often played out in cases of alleged custodial deaths in Bangladesh.
In such cases, whether a person leaves custody dead or alive, what remains a significant challenge is establishing the truth behind it. Although the constitution expressly prohibits torture, the Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention) Act, 2013 criminalises torture and custodial deaths, and investigations are routinely conducted, there is no consistently applied international standard guiding how medical and forensic evidence should be documented, assessed, and explained. As a result, the problem is often not disagreement over what happened, but uncertainty about what can be proven.
Bangladesh has several medico-legal safeguards for individuals in custody. Section 46E of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) requires that an arrested person who appears injured or ill be examined by a government medical officer or registered practitioner and provided with treatment. Medical reports must be furnished to both the police and the arrested person. Section 46A(e) further requires police to document injuries, obtain medical certificates, and record the reasons for those injuries. Meanwhile, under Section 167(2A), a magistrate may order a medical examination before an accused is placed on police remand and must order another examination if injuries are observed or allegations of torture arise after remand. Where torture is confirmed, the magistrate must proceed per the law.
The 2013 anti-torture law strengthens these protections. Section 4 empowers courts to record complaints of torture and order medical examinations immediately. Doctors must document injuries, indicate the probable timing of abuse, and submit reports within 24 hours, which must also be shared with the complainant or a nominated representative.
In case of custodial deaths, the medico-legal framework in Bangladesh is layered. When a death appears suspicious, Section 174 of the CrPC requires the officer in charge of the relevant police station to immediately inform the nearest executive magistrate and conduct an inquest at the scene in the presence of respectable members of the community, documenting the apparent cause of death and any visible injuries. They must then forward the report to the district magistrate, and send the body for medical examination, where practicable and without risking decomposition. Section 176 further empowers a magistrate to hold a separate inquiry specifically into custodial deaths, either in addition to or in place of the police inquest, including the authority to examine evidence and, where necessary, order exhumation and examination of the body.
When a prisoner dies, the law places significant emphasis on medical documentation. Section 15 of The Prisons Act, 1894 and rules 98 and 99 of the Jail Code require detailed records of illness, treatment, and death. Post-mortem examinations are mandatory where death appears unnatural or the cause is uncertain, and all custodial deaths must be medically certified and reported.
While this framework provides a legal basis for investigation, its effectiveness depends on procedures used, forensic capacity, and medico-legal training of doctors, all of which require substantial improvement to meet international standards.
In fact, a 2024 qualitative study conducted across Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Sir Salimullah Medical College Mitford Hospital, and Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital revealed serious challenges in the medico-legal practice. The findings showed that 67 percent of the doctors who participated in the study reported heavy workloads and time constraints that undermined documentation quality; 56 percent reported insufficient medico-legal training, and 50 percent reported limited specialist availability, often leaving general physicians to perform forensic tasks. The study also identified systemic weaknesses, including the absence of standardised protocols across hospitals, inadequate forensic infrastructure, and limited legal awareness among healthcare professionals.
Besides, torture survivors rarely arrive with obvious proof. Injuries may have faded, evidence may never have been documented, or abuse may have been inflicted specifically to avoid visible marks. Trauma itself can also affect memory and testimony. The challenge is therefore in determining whether lived experience can be transformed into reliable evidence.
The case of renowned photojournalist Dr Shahidul Alam illustrates this problem. In 2018, while in police custody, he alleged torture before a magistrate. Instead of recording his statement as required under the anti-torture law and ordering a medical examination, the magistrate sent him on remand. Medical examinations were later conducted following High Court intervention in a writ challenging the remand order and seeking medical treatment. However, the report merely stated that Dr Alam was physically and mentally sound. No psychologist participated, despite concerns about psychological torture. When his lawyers raised this issue, a second examination was ordered by the High Court. The report again concluded he did not have any mental disorders. Neither report explained the nature of the examinations, the questions asked, the responses given, or the methodology used. He was also escorted to examinations by officers responsible for his detention.
These gaps are precisely what the internationally recognised Istanbul Protocol seeks to prevent. This protocol requires detailed documentation of allegations, systematic physical and psychological assessment, transparent reasoning, and procedural safeguards ensuring independence. Its purpose is not to presume allegations are true, but to ensure findings are evidence-based, explainable, and open to scrutiny.
If torture cases expose the difficulty of proving invisible harm, custodial deaths reveal the danger of premature certainty. The 2014 death of Ishtiaque Hossain Jonny illustrates this concern. Following his death in custody, allegations of torture were initially dismissed based on a medical report concluding he had suffered a heart attack. Only later did judicial inquiry prompt further investigation, revealing torture marks through a surathal (inquest) report. The issue was not merely the conclusion, but whether alternative explanations had been adequately tested.
Similar concerns have been raised in the case of the deaths in custody of three members of the Bawm community at a Chattogram jail in May and July 2025. Civil society groups then called for judicial investigations, alleging failures in medical treatment and accountability.
Another set of internationally recognised standards, the Minnesota Protocol, provides a framework for such cases. It requires deaths in custody and other potentially unlawful deaths to be investigated independently, thoroughly, and transparently. The protocol emphasises detailed forensic reasoning, photographic documentation, strict evidence handling, comprehensive autopsy reporting, and procedures allowing independent experts and courts to review findings. Its defining feature is verifiability: conclusions must be traceable through documented evidence and reasoning.
For survivors of torture, the challenge is transforming often invisible harm into evidence capable of withstanding scrutiny. For custodial deaths, the challenge is reconstructing the truth from physical traces when the victim can no longer speak. Both situations expose the same weakness: the absence of consistently structured and transparent investigative methods. This matters because institutions such as the Bangladesh Police and the Rapid Action Battalion are frequently involved in these cases, and the credibility of investigations, therefore, affects not only individual outcomes but public confidence in state institutions.
The Istanbul Protocol and the Minnesota Protocol do not determine guilt or innocence. They provide methods for establishing facts. They require evidence to be documented consistently, medical findings to be explained rather than merely asserted, and investigative reasoning to remain visible and reviewable.
Ultimately, the central question in any torture or custodial death case is simple: what happened and how do we know it happened? In justice, what cannot be seen in the process is often what cannot be trusted in the outcome. It is, therefore, imperative for those in power now to better align custodial torture and death investigations with international protocols and standards so that the search for truth is always guided by evidence, transparency, and public confidence rather than uncertainty.
Barrister Priya Ahsan Chowdhury is an advocate at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, and an associate at Dr Kamal Hossain and Associates.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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