Uttam's mother, aunt freed

A Cox's Bazar court last night released Uttam Barua's mother, aunt and baby cousin from jail hours after the High Court had directed the government to free them immediately.
It was Uttam's faked Facebook page with an anti-Islam photo that provoked the rampage against the Buddhist community in Ramu on September 29.
He along with his mother Madhu Barua and aunt Adi Barua were arrested the next day. Anisha, Adi Barua's two-year-old daughter, had to be in custody with her mother.
Meanwhile, the committee investigating the violence submitted its report to the home ministry yesterday.
Senior Secretary CQK Mustaq Ahmed said he received the report from the additional divisional commissioner of Chittagong around 12:30pm, UNB reports.
The probe identified 205 persons, including local leaders and activists of Jamaat-e-Islami, BNP and the ruling Awami League, as the ones responsible for the vandalism and arson that continued for hours that night.
It also found complicity of Naikhangchhari Upazila Chairman Tofail Ahmed, locally known as a Jamaat man.
Tofail has links with Myanmar-based terror group Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), the report said. In July, he attended a secret meeting with 14 other RSO members in Dubai, reports Prothom Alo.
Tofail is also a relative of Abdul Moktadir, now under police custody and being interrogated over the attacks, which left at least 18 pagodas and 50 houses damaged in Ramu.
Moktadir, a Shibir activist and student of a private polytechnic institution in Chittagong, circulated the fabricated page from a friend's shop in the upazila. He had a meeting with Tofail at Naikhangchhari on September 28.
The report said Lutfur Rahman Kajal, a local lawmaker and BNP leader, did nothing to prevent the mayhem, although he was present that night in Ramu.
Nazibul Islam, then acting officer-in-charge of Ramu Police Station, failed to deal with the situation on the night of September 29. Ramu upazila nirbahi officer did not play his due role either, it added.
Home Minister Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir had formed the four-member probe body headed by the Chittagong additional divisional commissioner to investigate the violence.
The committee made 22 recommendations to avoid recurrence of such incidents.
THE HC ORDER
The court yesterday observed that the detention of the trio without any specific case was illegal and a violation of the constitution.
The bench of Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik and Justice Farid Ahmed passed the order after Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Amit Talukder had informed it that Madhu and Adi were kept detained although they had not been implicated in any case.
In its order the court said Madhu, Adi and Anisha could stay in Chittagong Circuit House or at their home in Ramu or in the shelter home of Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) or wherever they wished.
The government would provide them with food and other essentials if they stayed at the circuit house or ASK should do it if the three decided to stay at the shelter house, the court said.
ASK, which yesterday sought a directive on the government to release Uttam's family members, became a party in the rule.
Our Cox's Bazar correspondent reports, Uttam's mother and aunt refused to stay in Chittagong Circuit House or ASK's shelter house.
Senior Judicial Magistrate Tawhid Haque handed over Madhu Barua to the custody of his brother Taposh Barua while Adi Barua returned to her husband Tarun Barua.
On Wednesday, the HC issued a suo moto rule asking the government to explain in 12 hours why the detention of the three should not be declared illegal and why they should not be released.
The ruling came following reports published in different national dailies, including The Daily Star, on the detention.
Meanwhile, Nirjan Barua of Rangunia, whose Facebook page contained an anti-Islam image, was still in safe custody as of yesterday evening, reports our staff correspondent of Chittagong.
Police said he had taken his practical examination yesterday. Nirjan is an eighth-semester student of the automobile department at Bangladesh Sweden Polytechnic Institute in Kaptai.
ASM Nizam Uddin, additional superintendent of police (ASP) of Hathazari circle, told The Daily Star that Nirjan had been kept in a homely atmosphere and his family met him there.
The ASP, however, did not disclose the place of Nirjan's stay due to safety reasons.
Chunti Barua, mother of Nirjan, expressed satisfaction over the safe house.