Four out of 10 mobile courts, despite widespread criticism by the human rights activists in the country, have jailed 17 persons including activists of the various political parties for reportedly disrupting public security and, according to officials on Wednesday, beating up police officers.
Ten mobile courts led by 10 executive magistrates were engaged by the Dhaka district administration.
Of them, eight were patrolling the capital on the first day of the 48-hour hartal with the direct assistance of the offices of eight deputy police commissioners of the Dhaka Metropolitan Zones, and two courts were kept on standby.
Seven were jailed by the court in Mirpur zone and four each by the courts in Lalbagh and Wari zones, two by the Gulshan court, Dhaka’s additional district magistrate, SM Mahbubur Rahman, told New Age.
The courts started working on Tuesday and will continue until 12:00pm on Friday to ensure law and order, said the district administration.
On Wednesday the police nabbed eight activists of the Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Chhatra Shibir at Mirpur in the morning for allegedly beating up police officials and creating anarchy.
Witnesses said that a number of hartal supporters gathered near the Mirpur-10 intersection and got locked in a clash with the police when the latter tried to disperse them.
Later, the eight activists were produced before the court of executive magistrate Al Amin which was set up near the place of concurrence.
After hearing their submission one by one, the mgistrate jailed seven for different terms ranging from two to three months as they pleaded guilty and sought the court’s compassion.
The court, after considering the nature of the offences, jailed Abdul Halim Bhuiyan, 50, for two months, Mahbub Kabir, 35, Habibur Rahman Sheikh, 59, and Rahmat Ali, 24, for three months each, and Badrul Alam, 22, Neyamat Ullah, 23, and Siddiqur Rahman, 40, for two months each.
After delivering the verdict, the magistrate sent them to jail.
One of the eight accused, Ishak Munshi, who did not plead guilty, was handed over the police after the magistrate asked them to send him to a Dhaka court.
The police in Lalbagh zone also arrested a total of six persons on charge of disrupting public order in the area, said officials.
Executive magistrate of the court, Abul Bashar Md Fakhruzzaman, convicted four of them and handed the other two of them over to the police, asking the latter to sue them in a regular case.
‘Three were jailed for seven days each and one for two days,’ said the magistrate.
The government used such mobile courts during the last 36-hour hartal enforced by the opposition parties.
Rights activists and eminent citizens said that conviction of picketers during hartal is totally unlawful, and raised questions about the way the courts were conducted.
Leading rights watchdog Ain o Salish Kendra once again expressed grave concern over the use of mobile courts.
It said that during the hartal on June 4 and 5 it was found that instant trial by mobile courts was depriving the accused persons of their right to a proper defence.
This process flouted the normal court system, made the transparency of the judiciary questionable and opened the door for harassment of innocent pedestrians, it added.
-With New Age input
