Wednesday, May 16, 2012

No bail for Fakhrul, others, sent to jail

A Dhaka court on Wednesday ordered into jail BNP's Acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and 32 other opposition leaders after refusing them bail in an arson attack case.  The leaders appealed for bail after surrendering at the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in the morning after failing to get bail in the High Court that had ordered them to surrender at the trial court.

Metropolitan speedy trial magistrate Mohammad Erfan Ullah heard the petitions at noon and passed the order. The lawyers for the alliance leaders then pleaded with Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Bikash Kumar Saha to reconsider, but he also turned them down. The alliance leaders surrendered before the court around 11am. The hearing started around 1:15pm with Barrister Moudud Ahmed placing arguments for the alliance leaders' bail. The Public Prosecutor (PP) of Dhaka District Judge's Court Khandaker Abdul Mannan and Metropolitan Sessions Judge Court PP Abdullah Abu opposed the plea.

The judge threw out the bail petition after nearly a hour-long hearing. The alliance leaders, including Mirza Fakhrul, were taken to the prison around 3pm when the 'reconsideration' plea was rejected.   The pro-BNP lawyers erupted in protest at the rejection of the bail pleas. Some of them tried to vandalise the door of the court. Magistrate Mohammad Erfan Ullah's nameplate was also smashed and thrown outside.

A large number of police were deployed in the court premises ahead of the hearing in anticipation of unpleasant incidents. Traffic on the Johnson Road in front of the CMM court and the Roy Shaheb Bazar area was halted during the hearing.  The BNP-led 18-Party Alliance enforced countrywide general strike on Apr 29 and 30 protesting against the disappearance of M Ilias Ali, one of BNP's organising secretaries.

On Apr 29, a vehicle was torched near the PMO and crude bombs were hurled at the Secretariat. Police filed two cases at Shahbagh and Tejgaon accusing the leaders of their alleged involvement in the two incidents.  Fakhrul, Dr Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, M K Anwar, Mirza Abbas, ASM Hannan Shah, Sadeque Hossain Khoka, Liberal Democratic Party president Oli Ahmed and other senior leaders of the coalition were charged in the two cases.

A third High Court bench last Sunday ordered them to surrender in the trial court by Wednesday after the bench of justices Mainul Islam Chowdhury and Nazrul Islam Talukder returned a split decision on their petition for anticipatory bail.  The court has already sent the BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi to jail in the case and another joint Secretary General Mahbubuddin Khokon got bail in the same case.  

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