A Dhaka court on Thursday rejected the bail pleas of five senior Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leaders and placed them on remand for eight days in connection with two cases filed over violence in the capital. The five leaders are BNP standing committee members MK Anwar, Maudud Ahmed and Rafiqul Islam Mia, BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia’s adviser Abdul Awal Mintoo, and Khaleda Zia’s special assistant Shimul Biswas.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Rezaul Karim on Thursday rejected the BNP leaders’ bail petitions and put them on five-day police remand in an ‘attempt to murder’ case filed on November 6. Additional three days of remand were granted by the same court in a case filed on September 24 for ‘creating violence in the capital’. Both the cases were filed by the Motijheel police. The BNP leaders’ names were not mentioned in the FIR reports of these cases.
The court passed the remand orders in presence of the accused leaders, who were produced before the court by the law enforcers.
During the hearing, Barrister Mahbub Uddin Khokan, a counsel for the BNP leaders, told the court that the cases were filed with an ill motive in order to harass them politically. He also said that there was no evidence against the accused that they had participated in violent acts in the capital. He also said that as per the Appellate Division verdict, the trial court could not place the BNP leaders on remand in the two cases. The trial court, however, rejected his prayer and granted eight days of police remand for the five BNP leaders.
Meanwhile, the main Opposition BNP slammed the government for placing five of its senior leaders on eight-day remand, dubbing it politics of vengeance. The party also demanded immediate and unconditional release of the leaders to ensure political stability.
Meanwhile, BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam in a written statement criticised the government on Thursday for placing the party’s senior leaders on eight-day remand in connection with motivated charges.
“The government has granted the remand only to thwart the opposition’s ongoing antigovernment movement over the poll-time non-party caretaker government (CG) issue,” Alamgir alleged.
At a press briefing at the BNP central office in Naya Paltan in the capital, BNP joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi also said the ruling Awami League wants to destroy the Opposition party by any means and so has implicated the top leaders in connection with false charges.
Pro-BNP lawyers brought out a procession on the Supreme Court premises after hearing the news of the remand orders. They later held a meeting and urged the Chief Justice to issue a show-cause notice against the trial court judge for not following the apex court directives while placing the BNP leaders on remand.
Senior BNP leaders Maudud, Anwar and Rafiqul were detained from Kawran Bazar area in the capital on November 8, while Mintoo and Shimul were detained outside Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan residence the next day. They were shown arrested in the two cases on November 9.
The investigation officers of the two cases submitted the remand prayers on November 9 after the five BNP leaders were produced before the court. The court, however, sent the five leaders to jail and fixed Thursday for hearing of bail and remand prayers. After hearing the petitions, the court on Thursday passed the orders. According to the November 6 ‘attempt to murder’ case statement, Opposition leaders blocked a road at Kamalapur Bazar and blasted several crude bombs targeting law enforcers during a strike by the 18-Party Alliance on November 5.
The other case statement says the BNP activists vandalized and torched a car and blasted several crude bombs in Motijheel on September 24. The procession was brought out to protest the submission of a charge-sheet against four Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD) leaders, including its president. The JCD leaders were accused of hurling crude bombs at the residence of the information minister.
-With The Independent input
