Govt cautioned

The High Court yesterday directed the government not to harass BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir for next two months by implicating him in cases "without the due process of law".
In response to a writ petition, the court also issued a rule upon the government, seeking an explanation in two weeks as to why it should not be directed to desist from detaining the opposition leader in any more cases having no congnisable offences against him.
An HC bench of Justice Hasan Foez Siddique and Justice ABM Altaf Hossain fixed February 14 for hearing the rule.
Because of the HC order, the government cannot now show Fakhrul arrested without any specific allegation against him or evidence of offences committed by him, Mahbubuddin Khokon, a lawyer of Fakhrul, told The Daily Star.
The BNP leader filed the writ petition on January 20, saying that whenever he had secured bail in one case, he was shown arrested in another case even if he had no involvement in the offences mentioned and his name was not on the list of the accused.

Earlier in the day, a Dhaka court sent him back to jail for the fourth time after rejecting his bail petition in a case filed by Paltan police on charges of damaging vehicles and blasting cocktails in front of Nightingale restaurant in the capital's Bijoynagar during a roadblock enforced by the BNP-led 18-party alliance on December 9 last year.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Shahidul Islam Faruque also rejected a remand prayer filed by police in the case.