A man spent a year in jail for an Arms Act conviction handed down against someone else after police arrested him on the basis of mistaken identity, a High Court-ordered inquiry has found.
The case was filed with Mirpur Police Station in the capital on 10 April 2002 against Md Almaach, a resident of Purba Dhoair village in Nayabari Union under Dohar Police Station in Dhaka.
On 19 June 2004, Dhaka Metropolitan Special Tribunal-11 sentenced Almaach, who was tried in absentia, to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment.
More than 21 years after the verdict, on 4 November 2025, SI Md Jubaidul Haque, in-charge of Char Mohammadpur Police Outpost under Dohar Police Station, arrested Md Almas from Sundaripara village in connection with the case.
The convicted man, Md Almaach, is the son of Md Khalilur Rahman and Salma Akter. His ancestral village is Purba Dhoair. He was 24 in 2002 and now lives in Canada.
The arrested man, however, is the son of Sheikh Khalil and Rasnara, and his ancestral village is Bahra. He was only 17 in 2002.
After the arrest, Almas and prominent local residents told the arresting officer, Jubaidul Haque, that the man in custody was not the person convicted in the case.
Almas subsequently filed a writ petition with the High Court, challenging the legality of his arrest. Following an initial hearing on 6 September, the court issued a rule, ordering an inquiry to establish the identities, personal details of the man in custody and the person convicted in the case.
The court directed the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Dhaka to conduct the inquiry through a senior judicial magistrate under his supervision and submit a report within 45 days of receiving the order.
The inquiry found that the arrested Almas and the Almaach convicted in the Arms Act case were two entirely different people.
It identified the arrested man as Md Almas, son of Sheikh Khalil and Rasnara/Rasnara Begum, of Sundaripara village, Kusumhati Post Office, Dohar Police Station, Dhaka, concluding he was not the convict in the case.
The report identified the absconding convict as Md Almaach, son of Md Khalilur Rahman/Khalil Ahmed/Md Abul Khayer (Khalil) and Salma Akter, of Purba Dhoair village, Dakshin Bahra Post Office, Nayabari Union, Dohar Police Station, Dhaka. He is currently living in Canada.
On Sunday, 8 November, the matter was scheduled for an order before a High Court bench comprising Justice JBM Hassan and Justice Aziz Ahmed Bhuiyan.
The court ordered the immediate release of Almas, who was in prison despite not being the person convicted in the case.
A directive in this regard was issued to the prison authorities.
Lawyers Md Tanvir Ahmed and Abdullah Abu Sayeed represented the writ petitioner. Deputy Attorney General Shihab Uddin Khan and Assistant Attorney General Mahiyuddin Md Hanif appeared for the state.
Inquiry report
The inquiry report confirmed the arrested Almas was not the person convicted in the Arms Act case filed with Mirpur Police Station.
The actual convict, Almaach, remains absconding and is currently living in Canada.
Why the wrong person was arrested
The report identified three reasons for the mistaken arrest following an on-site inquiry and an examination of relevant case documents.
First, Almas and his family lived in Bahra village, under the South Bahra Post Office in Dohar, Dhaka, before 2007. The actual convict’s village, Purba Dhoair, also falls under the same post office. The common practice of identifying residents by their post office, therefore, resulted in the two men being associated with the same address.
Second, their fathers’ names were similar. The actual convict’s father was named Md Khalilur Rahman (Khalil), while the arrested man’s father was Sheikh Khalil – a similarity which contributed to the confusion over their identities.
Third, the address of Almaach, who was convicted in the 2002 Arms Act case, was mistakenly recorded as ‘Dakshin Bahra’ instead of ‘Purba Dhoair’.
The error was carried forward in subsequent documents.
Even the arrest warrant, issued after the verdict, listed his address as ‘Dakshin Bahra’ rather than ‘Purba Dhoair’.
