Six held over protesting Mushtaq’s death get bail

Six out of seven leftist student leaders and activists who were arrested following the protests over writer Mushtaq Ahmed's death in custody got bail yesterday.

A Dhaka court granted bail to the six student leaders and activists in connection with a case filed over assaulting and preventing policemen from discharging their duties in Shahbagh on February 26.

They are Tamjid Haider, Nozir Amir Chowdhury Joy, Akib Ahmed, Arafat Saad, Nazifa Jannat, and Joyoti Chakravarty.

Four of them – Tamjid, Nozir, Akib and Arafat – were released yesterday, while Nazifa and Joyoti may be released today, said Tahsin Mollick, president of Dhaka city unit of Bangladesh Students' Union.

However, no bail petition was filed for ASM Tanjimur Rahman. Court sources said Tanjimur's family appointed another lawyer who did not appeal for his bail yesterday.

On March 3, a Dhaka court sent them to jail after rejecting both remand and bail prayers in connection with the case.

The seven were picked up from a torch procession brought out on February 26 in Dhaka's Shahbagh, protesting the death of writer Mushtaq Ahmed in custody the previous day.

Following a clash between police and protesters during the torch procession, police sued the seven detained protesters along with 150 unnamed others on 10 charges, including attempted murder.

Protesters have been demonstrating in the capital and elsewhere to press home their demands -- justice for the death of Mushtaq, scrapping of the Digital Security Act and the immediate release of all those imprisoned under the controversial law.

Meanwhile Ruhul Amin, a coordinator of left-leaning Shramik-Krishak-Chhatra-Janata Oikya Parishad, who wrote on Facebook protesting Mushtaq's arrest under DSA and subsequent death in custody, is still jailed under the controversial law.

On February 27, Ruhul was sued under the DSA for trying to destabilise the state, creating social unrest and other reasons.

Mushtaq, 53, and Ahmed Kabir Kishore, 45, a prominent cartoonist, were held in pretrial detention under DSA, following their arrests in May 2020 for Facebook posts and social media communications that were deemed critical of the government.

Mushtaq had been in Kashimpur High Security Jail-3 in Gazipur since August 20. On February 25, he fainted and then was taken to Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmad Medical College and Hospital, where doctors declared him dead.

Coming out on bail on March 4, Kishore alleged that he and Mushtaq were inhumanely tortured while in custody of the Rapid Action Battalion.