The BNP has alleged Secretary General of Hifazat-e Islam Junaid Babu Nagari fell ill after being ‘tortured in police custody’.
Nagari was freed on bail in three cases by a Dhaka court on Wednesday.
”I have seen newspaper reports saying he was tortured in police custody. It’s regrettable,” Shamsuzaman Dudu, an advisor to BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, told the press on Wednesday afternoon.
He alleged those sent in police remand were not emerging normally because of physical abuse.
Dudu, however, welcomed the decision to grant bail to Nagari, a teacher at the Darul Ulum Muinul Alam Madrasa at Hathazai, in Chittagong, in view of his poor health.
The leader of the Chittagong-based Islamic group was released on Wednesday after being held in prison for 23 days. His trial is pending.
Magistrate Shahriar Mahmud Adnan of the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrates Court granted the bail.
Nagari has been admitted to the intensive care unit of BIRDEM.
The Motijheel police have accused him of murdering policemen, vandalism and other crimes, court Registrar Abdul Gaffar said.
Nagari, who was grilled in custody, has made confessional statement in a case involving murders during the outfit’s Motijheel rally on May 5. He is also said to have disclosed information concerning the Hifazat rally.
Other Hifazat leaders, however, have rubbished his revelations.
Babu Nagari was arrested on May 6, a day after the Hifazat’s Dhaka blockade and Motijheel rally.
The government claims there was a conspiracy to create massive mayhem following the rally with opposition parties egging the Hifazat leaders to oust the government.
Babu Nagari reportedly admitted that the charges were indeed true.
The court allowed the police to grill him for four days in the murder case and for another nine days each in cases related to bomb blasts and preventing the police from performing their duties.
Source: bdnews24
It has become a normal practice of the Awami League government to arrest political opponents, take them into remand, torture them mercilessly and send them to hospital to recover a little so that they can be taken back to face torture again – Mahmudur Rahman being the most recent of such case.
Babunagari’s case is instructive. After facing prolonged remand (read as beating and other forms of torture) that he became so ill that he had to be taken to the hospital in ICU but simultaneously and this is interesting, he has also been granted bail. Why? Do you think it is because he had a good legal basis to get bail, no. Awami Magistrates do not work that way.
Babunagari has been tortured so mercilessly, that he is close to death – by granting him bail government simply wanted to ensure that he does not die while in custody!
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