Home Ministry received recommendations to withdraw 500 political cases

Application deadline expired, DCs asked to send recommendation soon
The Home Ministry received recommendations from deputy commissioners of Dhaka and some other districts in favour of withdrawing 500 politically motivated cases.
According to sources, 2675 applications were submitted to Dhaka DC who upon approval of PP gave his opinion for withdrawal of 155 cases including 11 of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina alone and others against Awami League MPs and senior leaders including Tofael Ahmed, Sajeda Chowdhury and Kamal Ahmed Majumder.
No recommendation with regard to 11 applications of BNP chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia, her two sons, Jamaat ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami, Jamaat secretary general Ali Ahsan Mujaheed and other leaders of their alliance has been sent to home ministry as their applications are pending a decision by the PP.
A parliamentary committee headed by law state minister advocate Kamrul Islam formed to decide as to which political cases to be withdrawn is set to hold a meeting on June 10 in this regard.
Issues of withdrawing over 200 political motivated cases which were filed during BNP led alliance and caretaker governments against Awami League president Sheikh Hasina, top leaders, present MPs and former ministers of the party are likely to be discussed in that meeting.
These include corruption cases filed by ACC, tax evasion cases of NBR, extortion cases and criminal cases which were filed during the above mentioned regimes.
Yesterday a meeting was held at the home ministry chaired by the home secretary and attended by all divisional commissioners who were instructed to ask DCs under them to send recommendations soon, if possible by June 7, so that withdrawal of these cases can be discussed during parliamentary committee meeting scheduled for June 10.
After coming out of the meeting divisional commissioners were seen to talk to DCs over telephone asking them to expedite submission of their recommendations to the home ministry.
An unconfirmed source said over 500 recommendations in respect of political case withdrawal have been received by the home ministry by deadline yesterday from DCs of Dhaka, Chittagong, Narayanganj, Tangail, Bhola, Sunamganj, Comilla, Patuakhali, Gaibandha and Sariatpur.
On February 22, 2009 a committee was formed through a gazette notification while another circular was issued asking affected people to apply to respective DCs to withdraw such political motivated cases by April 15, followed by extensions twice upto May 17 and 31. As per system, after the cases being recommended by PPs, DCs and parliamentary committee, will be finally withdrawn by the home ministry.

Courtesy of The Bangladesh Today