The High Court on Thursday issued a rule asking the government to explain why directions should not be given to find out BNP joint secretary general Salahuddin Ahmed and bring him before it.
Responding to a petition under section 491 of the CrPC filed by Salahuddin’s wife Hasina Ahmed, an HC division bench comprising Justice Quamrul Islam Siddiqui and Justice Gobinda Chandra Tagore passed the order.
The rule was made returnable by Sunday (Mar 15), said the court order.
Khandker Mahbub Hossain and barrister Moudud Ahmed appeared for the petitioner while Attorney General Mahbubey Alam stood for the government.
Earlier on the day, Hasina Ahmed filed a criminal petition with the High Court seeking a court direction on the government to produce BNP joint secretary general Salahuddin Ahmed before it within twenty-four hours.
Hasina claimed that the law enforcers in plainclothes picked her husband up from a Uttara house in the capital on Tuesday night and yet to hand him over to any police station.
The law enforcers did not produce him before any court in even after 24 hours of his detention, as required by the law.
Hasina Ahmed told the newsmen that “I went to police stations at Gulshan and Uttara to file a general diary regarding my husband but they refused to take it, saying the complain was ‘baseless’.
Meanwhile, State Minister for Home Affairs Asaduzzaman Khan on Thursday said they were not still clear whether BNP joint secretary general Salahuddin Ahmed is missing or picked up by anyone.
“It’s not clear before us whether Salahuddin is missing or picked up by any one. We don’t know where he has gone or staying. We’re looking into it and it’ll take time,” he told reporters after attending a function at Mirpur Police Staff College.
BNP accuses law enforcer
BNP on Wednesday alleged that law enforcers picked up its joint secretary general Salahuddin Ahmed from a house at Uttara in the city on Tuesday night.
In a statement, BNP standing committee member Nazrul Islam Khan said they have come to know that around 20-30 members of law enforcement agencies, including police, DB police, and Rab, picked up Salahuddin from a house at Uttara after 10pm on Tuesday night.
“Party colleagues and his family members have been out of contact with Salahuddin since last night,” the statement reads.
Nazrul said the law enforcers also detained a man and a woman staff of the house along with Salahuddin.
However, DMP and Rab media wings denied it.
“He (Salahuddin) has not yet been produced before any court. Even, the law enforcers didn’t disclose the information about his arrest, leaving his family and political colleagues into deep concern,” the BNP standing committee member said.
He said Salahuddin was working as party spokesman after the arrest of BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.
“He (Salahuddin) has been arrested as the government has turned hostile to him for issuing statements and making announcements of programmes on behalf of BNP and its alliance,” Nazrul added.
He demanded the government immediately release Salahuddin and two others the law enforcers picked up with him.
The BNP leader urged the government to stop the autocratic, unjust and illegal acts like secretary picking up opposition leaders.
Earlier, Salahuddin Ahmed’s family claimed that law enforcers detained him from a house at Uttara on Tuesday night.
“I was talking to my husband over cell phone. But, the line got disconnected unusually around 10:8pm on Tuesday. Since then, we couldn’t contact him,” the BNP leader’s wife, Hasina Ahmed, told the media on Wednesday night.
She claimed that the owner of the Uttara house where Salahuddin had been staying informed her today that a joint team of Rab and plainclothes police detained Salahuddin around 10:10pm on Tuesday.
Hasina Ahmed said the house owner told her that the law enforcers came in front of the house road No-13/B, house No-49A sector-3 at Uttara around 9:40pm in six vehicles and entered the house around 10pm introducing themselves as DB members.
Later, they snapped the power connection to the house and picked Salahuddin up around 10:10pm, she said quoting the house owner.
Contacted, deputy commissioner (Media) of DMP Masudur Rahman said police did not arrest Salahuddin.
Rab media wing director Mufti Mahmud said they do not have any information about the arrest of the BNP leader by the elite force.
Salahuddin has been issuing statements, including those of hartal announcements, on behalf of the BNP-led 20-party alliance, since the arrest of another BNP joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.
Party sources said Salahuddin was secretly staying at the house at sector No-3, Uttara without his family members to evade arrest.
Earlier, members of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) arrested Rizvi from his hideout at a house at Baridhara in the city on January 30.
Following Rizvi’s arrest, Salahuddin has been working as spokesperson of the alliance. He also announced the latest spell of shutdown programme in a statement on Saturday.
Salahuddin issued the last statement on Tuesday accusing the government of inviting undemocratic forces into the picture by denying space for a democratic movement.
In the statement, he also announced a countrywide mass procession programme of the 20-party for Thursday to press home its demands, including immediate national election under a neutral administration.
No scope for justice
Though Salahuddin issues statements every day, there had been no such statement today.
In his earlier statement on Sunday, BNP joint secretary general Salahuddin said that there is no scope for opposition to get justice alleging that the government is interfering in the judiciary nakedly.
“We had earlier said it’s not possible to establish the rule of law when the judicial system is controlled by the executive. The hopes of the opposition leaders and activists for getting justice has been revoked long ago due to the naked interference in the judiciary. Even then Khaleda Zia will face with legal steps all the false cases filed against her” , Salah Uddin Ahmed added in his statement.
Accusing the government of turning the country into a terrible police state, Salahuddin said people have now lost their confidence in the law and court. “People had never seen in the past such blood shedding from the body of democracy.”
The BNP leader alleged that Bangladesh now has become a dead valley due to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s evil efforts to hang onto power by walking over bodies of the people who are on a movement.
Salahuddin had alleged that the government was trying to mislead the country’s people and the international community with their intentional militancy campaign only to hide the political crisis it has created by holding a lopsided election on January 5, 2014.
He warned the law enforcers that though the Prime Minister announced to ‘take the responsibility for mass killings’, no one will be able to escape trial for their involvement in such killings.
The BNP leader urged the government to come to the path of democracy shunning autocracy and dictatorship. “Save the country, its people and try to protect yourselves.”
Source: weekly Holiday
