CAT: A Study on Bangladesh Compliance
National Legislation Prohibiting Torture at a Glance
Article 35 (5) of the Constitution stipulates that “no person shall
be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading
punishment or treatment”.
Section 29 of the Police Act of 1861 provides that every police
officer who shall offer any unwarrantable personal violence to
any person in his custody shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding
three months’ pay or to imprisonment, with or without hard
labour, for a period not exceeding three months or to both.
Section 340 of the Penal Code of 1860 criminalises wrongful
confinement of a person to extort from him or from any other
person interested in him any confession, which may lead to the
detection of an offence or misconduct.
Sections 323 and 324 of the Penal Code criminalizes acts
causing hurt and grievous hurt to any individual.
Acts of ‘criminal force’ and ‘assault’ are also criminalised under
the Penal Code. Section 352 of the Code provides that the
commission of assault or criminal force, unless caused in
consequence of grave and sudden provocation, is punishable
with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three months
or with fine which may extend to five hundred taka or with both.
Section 506 of the Penal Code criminalizes ‘criminal
intimidation’, which means, according to section of 503 of the
Code, threatening a person with any injury to his person,
reputation or property, or to the person or reputation of any one
in whom that person is interested, with an intention to cause
harm to that person, or to cause that person to do any act which
he is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do any act which that
person is legally entitled to do, as the means of avoiding the
execution of such threat.
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