HC stays remand

The High Court yesterday stayed a lower court order granting remand of five BNP leaders for interrogation in connection with two cases of hartal violence.

In the cases, Moudud Ahmed, MK Anwar, Rafiqul Islam Miah, Abdul Awal Mintoo and Shimul Biswas had been charged with attempted murder of cops and involvement in violence in the capital.

A Dhaka court on November 14 allowed the police to take them on remand for eight days.

Yesterday, the HC asked the authorities concerned to send them to jail immediately.  It, however, allowed the investigation officers to interrogate the accused, if necessary, at the jail gate.

The court also asked the government to explain in four weeks as to why the lower court order should not be cancelled.

An HC bench of Justice Borhanuddin and Justice KM Kamrul Kader came up with the order and rule after hearing two stay petitions filed by the accused opposition leaders.

In the petitions, their lawyers said the government had arrested them in the old cases in order to politically harass them. There was no specific allegation against them of being involved in hartal violence, and that their names were not even mentioned in the first information reports (FIR) of the cases.

The petitioners also said the lower court had granted the remand prayers moved     by the police without any reasonable ground.

AJ Mohammad Ali appeared for the petitioners while Attorney General Mahbubey Alam opposed the petitions.

A pro-BNP lawyer requesting anonymity told The Daily Star that the police were yet to take the BNP leaders on remand as the authorities received a copy of the lower court order yesterday morning.

Now after the HC ruling, the police cannot take them on remand, he said, adding the BNP leaders were in two Kashimpur jails in Gazipur.

Moudud, Anwar and Rafiqul were detained in front of Hotel Sonargaon in the capital on November 8, while the two others were detained outside BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan residence the next day.

Later, they were shown arrested in the cases filed by Motijheel police on September 24 and November 6.