Wrong Man Jailed: HC gives him bail, seeks answers
The High Court yesterday granted six months' ad-interim bail to a Manik Hawlader, an innocent man who had been serving the jail sentence handed down to actual convict Manik Miah, of Shariatpur's Bhedarganj upazila, in connection with a drug related case.
At the same time, the HC ordered convicted Manik Miah to surrender before the trial court concerned in Shariatpur immediately.
During the hearing on a writ petition, the bench of Justice JBM Hassan and Justice Md Khairul Alam also ordered the district and sessions judge of Shariatpur to send all the relevant case documents to this court in 30 days.
The chief judicial magistrate of Shariatpur was also asked to record statements of the investigation officers of the case about implicating Manik Hawlader and to send the statements to the HC in 30 days, Tushar Kanti Roy, deputy attorney general, told The Daily Star.
He said the HC bench sought the case documents and statements in order to examine why an innocent man was implicated and sent to jail instead of the actual convict and to find out who were behind this.
Meanwhile, writ petitioner's lawyer Partha Sarathi Ray told The Daily Star that Shariatpur's Senior Judicial Magistrate Md Shamsul Alam yesterday submitted a judicial probe report, which said that Manik Hawlader was innocent, before the HC bench.
Manik Hawlader and Manik Miah are two separate persons, he added, citing the judicial probe report.
Following the writ, filed by Manik Hawlader's wife Salma Begum on March 2, the HC bench on March 7 directed Shariatpur's chief judicial magistrate to conduct a judicial enquiry into the matter and submit a report in this regard.
Sirajganj Special Tribunal-1 and its jail super were asked to provide assistance to the chief judicial magistrate in the investigation.
Manik Hawlader has been in Sirajganj jail since he was arrested on November 28 last year in the case.
The HC also issued a rule asking the respondents to explain why arresting Manik Hawlader and sending him to jail without verifying the authenticity of names, addresses and other details of both Manik Hawlader and Manik Miah should not be declared illegal.
In the rule, the court asked them to show causes as to why they should not be directed to release Manik Hawlader from jail.
The home and law secretaries, deputy commissioner and CJM of Shariatpur, deputy commissioner of Sirajganj, judge of Special Tribunal-1 of Sirajganj, jailer of the district and other officials concerned have been made respondents to the rule.
Sirajganj's Special Tribunal-1 convicted and sentenced Manik Miah to four years' imprisonment on February 11, 2019 for possessing 600 bottles of phensidyl.
Before the judgement, however, Manik Miah secured bail from the HC and then absconded, DAG Tushar Kanti Roy said, adding that in the bail bond documents, Manik Miah mentioned his name as Manik Hawlader.
Police then arrested Manik Hawlader on January 13 this year.
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