The High Court on Sunday stayed the trial court order that remanded five senior BNP leaders in police custody for eight days. The trial court on Thursday put three BNP lawmakers– Moudud Ahmed (73), MK Anwar (81) and Rafiqul Islam Miah (71)– and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia’s adviser Abdul Awal Mintoo (65) and her special assistant Shimul Biswas (56) on an eight-day police remand for their alleged involvement in violence during hartals. Responding to separate writ petitions, the HC bench, comprising Justices Bohan Uddin and KM Kamrul Quader, also directed the government to send them to jail immediately. It also issued a rule asking the government to explain why the trial court’s remand order on the five BNP leaders should not be declared illegal.
However, the HC said that the officers handling the case can interrogate the detained BNP leaders in jail, if needed.
The five arrested BNP leaders filed two separate petitions with the High Court on Sunday, seeking a stay on the lower court order that had allowed the police to put them on remand.
Barrister Mahbub Uddin Khokan, MP, filed the petitions on Sunday on behalf of the BNP leaders, seeking necessary directive in this regard.
During the hearing, Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president AJ Mohammad Ali said that the police had arrested the BNP leaders without any specific allegation. He also said despite the specific allegation, the Dhaka court on November 14 placed them on an eight-day remand in two cases, thereby violating the apex court’s
directive, only to torture the BNP leaders.
Moudud, Anwar and Rafiqul were detained in front of Hotel Sonargaon in the capital on November 8, while the two others were detained outside Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan residence early on November 9.
Later in the day, they were shown arrested in two separate cases filed for “attempted murder of cops and creating violence in the capital”. The Motijheel police filed the two cases on September 24 and November 6.
According to the November 6 “attempt to murder” case statement, the 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.
-With The Independent input
