Rights activist Adilur Rahman Khan was sent to the jail on Tuesday, a day after the High Court had asked the police to do so. A metropolitan magistrate sent Adilur Rahman, also Odhikar secretary, to Dhaka Central Jail in accordance with Monday’s order of the High Court that also stayed the five-day remand order to interrogate him in police custody. The metropolitan magistrate, Md Mustafa Shahriar Khan, rejected the application filed by Adilur seeking division facilities in the jail.
The High Court vacation bench of Justice Borhanuddin and Justice Kashifa Hossain on Monday had directed the police to send Adilur, also a Supreme Court lawyer, to jail ‘at once’ and not to take him into further remand. The detective
branch inspector Ashraful Islam, also the case investigation officer, produced Adilur before the court at about 1:30pm on Tuesday in tight protection.
The metropolitan magistrate was scheduled to resume court at about 2:00pm but began hearing one hour behind the schedule.
Adilur stood out of the dock on permission.
During half an hour long hearing, Adilur’s lawyer Md Asaduzzaman told the court that the
former should be provide with division facilities in the jail considering his social status and his contribution to protection of human rights.
Asaduzzaman said that being the secretary of rights watchdog Odhikar, Adilur had earned reputation by campaigning for protection of human rights both locally and internationally.
Besides, Adilur should get the privilege being a former deputy attorney general of the government.
On completion of the submission, the court went into his chamber saying that an order would be passed after ‘examining’ the document related to the case. The court officials said that Adilur’s plea for division in jail had been rejected.
Adilur’s wife Saira Rahman Khan, an associate professor of BRAC University, was present during the hearing.
Saira, also a lawyer, later told reporters they wanted that due process of law be followed in the case.
On August 10, the detective branch of DMP arrested Adilur in front of his Gulshan house for fabricating facts about the police action against Hefajat-e-Islam activists at Motijheel on May 5.
The next day, metropolitan magistrate Amit Kumar Dey granted the police five days’ remand to interrogate him.
The government claimed that the arrest of Adilur had nothing to do with the letter issued by the information ministry asking Odhikar to give details of the people who, it reported, had been killed in the police action on May 5, rather he had been arrested on specific charges of disseminating fabricated information and distorted photographs in electronic format.
His arrest drew outrage from rights groups at home and abroad.
-With New Age input
