The High Court yesterday directed the government not to harass or show three BNP leaders including its Vice-chairman Sadeque Hossain Khoka arrested in any other cases “without due process of law”.
Two other party leaders are its Joint Secretary General Rizvi Ahmed and Golam Akbor Khandakar, organising secretary of Chittagong BNP unit.
The HC order implies that police cannot harass or arrest the leaders in connection with any cases if there is no specific allegation against them.
The same court yesterday granted bail to Rizvi Ahmed for six months in four separate cases filed for vandalism and arson attacks.
Three HC benches passed the orders after the hearing on seven petitions filed by the accused BNP leaders.
Rizvi’s lawyers Bodruddoza Badal and barrister Ragi Rouf Chowdhury told The Daily Star that there is no legal bar to their client’s release from jail following the HC orders.
In November last year, police filed the cases against the leaders with Motijheel, Shahbagh and Ramna police stations on charges of vandalising vehicles, arson attacks and preventing police from discharging their duties during the anti-government movement of the BNP-led 18-party alliance in the capital, they added.
Meanwhile, two Dhaka courts yesterday sent BNP Standing Committee member Moudud Ahmed and Sadeque Hossain Khoka to jail in two separate cases after rejecting their bail petitions.
The courts also allowed police to interrogate them at the jail gate in connection with the cases.
Moudud will be quizzed for three days in connection with a land grabbing case while Khoka will face interrogation in a blockade violence case within five days, the courts said.
The court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ali Masud Sheikh permitted Harun-ur Rashid, deputy director of the ACC, to interrogate Moudud on charge of grabbing a piece of abandoned public land worth over Tk 300 crore in the capital’s Gulshan area.
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed the case on December 17 last year.
Published: 12:00 am Tuesday, January 28, 2014
