under these provisions. The punishment of criminal force and assault are so negligible that it will betray the international obligation of Bangladesh as committed in Article 4 of the CAT, if the cases of torture are prosecuted under these penal provisions. Similarly, torture arising primarily out of severe mental pain or suffering may fall under the offence of criminal intimidation, but torture arising out of physical pain or suffering is foreign to the penal provisions of Bangladesh concerning criminal intimidation. Moreover, punishments prescribed for criminal intimidation are not as grave as the punishment for torture should be. In this sense, Bangladesh cannot claim the offence of criminal intimidation as the discharge of her international obligation under Article 4 of the CAT. The same is true for the penal provision prohibiting personal violence or threats by a police officer against any person in his custody. Although inflicting personal violence upon any person in custody may amount to torture under the laws regulating the police forces, the definitions of these offences do not fully cover the definition of torture as given in Article 1 of the CAT. Moreover, the punishments prescribed for these offences are also trivial. Therefore, in this context, it would be odd to claim that Bangladesh has complied with Article 4 of the CAT by merely making this offence punishable. The foregoing analysis of the gap between the international and national legal regimes dealing with torture 40

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