Staff Correspondent:

Two people have been sent to jails, while eight others are out on bails in cases filed over attempts to impersonate as July-August uprising participants and secure state funds with false claims of sustaining injuries.

Md Mahfuzur Rahman, chief customer service officer at July Shaheed Srmity Foundation, made the claim, saying officials caught many more fraudsters but released them upon receiving written undertakings.

Some inside the foundation and other relevant government agencies are also allegedly involved in helping the pretenders in exchange for bribes. Some officials are also inadvertently adding people’s name into the database without confidently knowing about their role in the uprising.

Some other officials are benefitting from a scheme of turning unsuspecting civilians into “valiant uprising participants.”

Among these alleged officials, Dilshad Afrin was denied bail on sent to jail on 12 April. Four days earlier, she was expelled from the Jatiya Nagorik Committee over the corruption allegations. She is among the two still in jail over July uprising fraud cases.

The other arrestee, Liton, was himself an impersonator, and repeatedly attacked the foundation office, demanding his “due” state compensation for taking part in the uprising. However, foundation officials claim, Liton made misleading statements regarding his injuring during the unrest.

At one point, Liton claimed he was injured in front of the Raju Sculpture of Dhaka University (DU). Later, sensing apprehension, he changed his statement saying, he sustained wounds in front of the Bijoy 71 students’ dormitory on DU campus.

The foundation failed to find proofs for either of the claims, prompting Liton to repeatedly threaten and quarrel with foundation officials. During the verification process, Liton also secured Tk1 lakh from the foundation.

As he refused to submit a written undertaking, admitting his attempts to dupe officials, the foundation implicated him in a case. On 17 April, the court denied him bail, prompting his lawyers to publicly threaten foundation officials.

Liton is the member of a facebook group, where many other impersonators can be found. Some of these group members have submitted written undertakings to the foundation. Despite submitting undertakings, some will still have to face legal hurdles, as they later disowned their statements in the undertaking.

Among these is Ilias Hossain Kiron, 37. Even though he has provided a written statement, acknowledging his crime, he later claimed the statement was forcibly extracted from him by foundation staff. He is implicated in the same lawsuit Liton is.

Kiron’s case involves a web of confusions, created deliberately or inadvertently. He claimed he was attacked twice on and before 5 August by Awami League fascists. However, in the undertaking, he said he was attacked on 7 August, two days after the uprising ended in victory.

He also gave the name of a hospital for his initial treatment to foundation officials. But, the hospital staff could not provide any information regarding his treatment there.

He told reporters he did not input his name in the government database for uprising participants, and had no prior knowledge of getting government compensation.

National Institute of Orthopaedic and Rehabilitation Centre (NITOR) Director Professor Abul Kenan told reporters they received a list from the health ministry containing names of uprising’s injured participants, and contacted these people accordingly. They are not responsible for verifying the involvement of these participants in the uprising, Abul Kenan said.