The High Court yesterday issued a rule asking the government to show causes in two weeks why it should not be directed to release 83 migrant workers, who returned home from Vietnam and Qatar, from jail. 

Secretaries to the ministries of home, law and foreign affairs, inspector general of police, inspector general of prisons and the officer-in-charge of Turag Police Station have been made respondents.

The bench of Justice JBM Hassan and Justice Md Khairul Alam came up with the rule after Supreme Court lawyer Salah Uddin Reagan filed a writ petition as a public interest litigation on September 13 seeking its order on the respondents to release the 83 workers from jail.

Citing the petition, Salah Uddin told The Daily Star that the law enforcers arrested the 83 returnees under Section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and sent them to jail on September 1 though there is no specific allegation against them.

Of them, 81 returned home from Vietnam and two others from Qatar and they were in quarantine for 14 before they were arrested, he said.

During hearing of the petition yesterday, the lawyer told the HC that the arrestees were not brought back to the country under any extradition treaty.

They returned after they were given general mercy by the governments of Vietnam and Qatar. Therefore, they cannot be kept detained in jail without any specific allegations, the lawyer argued.

Earlier, some legal experts and rights activists told this newspaper that the workers were arrested under Section 54 of the CrPC, in violation of the law and Supreme Court directive, as there is no specific allegation against them.