Resist those who snatched our right to vote: Fakhrul
BNP yesterday urged people to put up a resistance against the current government through waging a national movement to “restore their rights, democracy” and uphold the spirit of the Liberation War.
“We call upon people to unite to resist those who snatched our rights, including the right to vote,” said BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, reports UNB.
Speaking at a human chain, he further said, “All of us -- irrespective of party and opinion -- must be vocal to protect our independence and uphold the spirit of the Liberation War. We’ll surely be able to defeat this regime through launching a greater movement in the days to come.”
BNP organised the human chain in front of Jatiya Press Club, demanding its chairperson Khaleda Zia’s release from jail.
Party leaders and activists holding banners, festoons and placards joined the programme and shouted slogans to have their chief freed from jail.
Apart from Fakhrul, BNP standing committee members Moudud Ahmed, Gayeshwar Chandra Roy and Nazrul Islam Khan addressed the programme.
On Sunday, Fakhrul announced the programme demanding the release of Khaleda and her proper treatment.
The party is also scheduled to stage similar programme today in all districts and metropolitan cities to press the demand.
Khaleda Zia was sent to jail after a special court convicted her in Zia Orphanage Trust graft case on February 8, 2018.
She has been receiving treatment at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University since April 1 last.
HC bench refuses to hear Khaleda’s bail plea
Meanwhile, a High Court bench yesterday refused to hear a petition filed by BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, seeking bail in Zia Charitable Trust corruption case in which she has been sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment by a lower court.
The HC bench of Justice Farid Ahmed and Justice ASM Abdul Mobin told the lawyers for Khaleda that earlier a senior HC bench has rejected a similar bail petition of the BNP chief on merit.
They [lawyers for Khaleda] can move an appeal before the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court against the HC order, the bench said.
Khaleda’s lawyer Zainul Abedin told the HC bench that there is no bar for this bench to hear the bail petition now. The HC bench asked Advocate Zainul to produce the rules before it, showing that a junior bench can hear a petition that has earlier been rejected by a senior bench.
Then the lawyer took the bail petition back from the HC bench.
Anti-Corruption Commission’s lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan told The Daily Star that the lawyers for Khaleda have failed to produce any rules in support of their argument that a junior HC bench can hear the petition.
Barrister Kayser Kamal, another lawyer for Khaleda, told this correspondent that, “We will file the bail application with the High Court once the court will reopen [on October 13] after its ongoing vacation.”
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam appeared for the state.
On July 31, another HC bench rejected Khaleda’s bail petition in the same case, considering the gravity of the offense mentioned in the case, and some other issues.
“We have gone through the impugned judgement and order of conviction and sentence, but did not notice any apparent or glaring infirmity in those,” the HC bench of Justice Obaidul Hassan and Justice SM Kuddus Zaman had said in the order.
Khaleda on September 3 submitted the petition seeking bail for the second time in the case, saying that she is seriously ill and is now hospitalised, as she has been suffering from various health complications.
In the bail petition, Khaleda also urged the HC to consider her bail on some other grounds -- including that she is a 74-year-old woman and the chief of BNP -- the largest political party; she was a three-time prime minister; and also the jail sentence handed down by the trial court is short.
The ACC filed the case with Tejgaon Police Station on August 8, 2011. On October 29 last year, a special court in Dhaka convicted Khaleda in the case and sentenced her to seven years’ imprisonment in her absence.
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