The High Court on Wednesday granted six-month ad-interim bail to BNP acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir in two cases filed for torching a car and blasting cocktails during the opposition's countrywide road blockade on December 9 last year.
The court also issued two separate rules upon the government to explain in four weeks why Fakhrul should not be granted regular bail in the cases.
The HC bench of Justice Kamrul Islam Siddiqui and Justice Sheikh Md Zakir Hossain passed the order after hearing the two petitions filed by Fakhrul's lawyer Barrister Mahbub Uddin Khokon on Wednesday.
Barrister Moudud Ahmed, a counsel for Fakhrul, told reporters that Fakhrul was implicated only in the two cases out of 38 filed in connection with the December 9 blockade.
So, there is now no legal bar to his client's release from jail according to the HC order, Moudud said.
The cases were filed with Paltan and Sher-e-Bangla Nagar police stations following the blocked programme.
Earlier on December 24, a Dhaka court rejected two separate bail petitions filed by the BNP leader in the cases.
The BNP-led 18-party alliance enforced the blockade on December 9 last year demanding restoration of the caretaker government system.
On December 10, law enforcers arrested Fakhrul at before the party's central office in the capital's Naya Paltan area. The arrestee is now in Kashimpur jail in Gazipur.
Fakhrul has been put behind bars twice during the tenure of the incumbent government.
On May 15 last year, he was sent to jail in an arson case filed in connection with opposition's April 29 hartal. Later, he walked free on bail granted by the High Court.
Source:The Daily Star
