Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on a vehicle waves hand to party supporters after coming out of the Dhaka Central Jail at Keraniganj on Thursday. — New Age photo
Main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, standing committee member Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, and publicity secretary Shaheed Uddin Chowdhury Anee were freed from jail on Thursday.
Fakhrul and Khasru walked out of Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj around 3:30pm after their bail orders reached the jail authorities, said Syed Jaynul Abedin Mesbah, a lawyer for the BNP leaders.
After coming out of jail, Fakhrul said that the party would continue its ongoing peaceful movement to restore democracy in Bangladesh until the people’s victory was ensured.
‘The people of Bangladesh have always struggled for democracy, the right to vote, and the right to food, and they will be victorious in the ongoing movement. We will continue our movement until victory,’ he said.
Khasru told journalists that the morality of the country’s democracy-loving people, including the BNP, was still strong despite the government’s attempt to seize people’s rights in the recent election.
‘The most important point is that they held the election, taking away people’s rights. The country’s people have morally defeated them,’ he added.
Fakhrul was freed after languishing in jail for 109 days, while Khasru was imprisoned for 105 days.
BNP leaders and activists, as well as the relatives of the two top leaders of the party, welcomed and received them at the jail gate.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court granted bail to Fakhrul and Khasru in a case filed over an attack on the chief justice’s residence on October 28 last year.
This was the last of 11 cases in which Fakhrul had secured bail after his arrest on October 29 a day after the BNP’s foiled grand rally in Dhaka.
Khasru, who was arrested on November 3, had to obtain bail in 10 cases before his release.
Meanwhile, the publicity secretary of BNP, Shaheed Uddin Chowdhury Anee, was also freed from Kashimpur Central Jail on Thursday afternoon.
Anee’s lawyer, Mohiuddin Chowdhury, said that the BNP leader was freed from jail around 3:00pm as he got bail in all cases filed against him.
Police arrested Annie at his Dhanmondi residence on October 11 in connection with a case filed with the local police station.
On Thursday, Dhaka’s Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Md Sultan Sohag Uddin, granted bail to BNP vice chairman Altaf Hossain Chowdhury in a sabotage case filed with the Ramna police station in Dhaka.
Earlier on Sunday, he was granted bail in two separate cases filed with the Ramna model police station.
The BNP leader has to get bail in two other cases to get freed from jail, said his lawyers.
One of the cases was filed with the Ramna police station on charges of attack and vandalism at the chief justice’s residence.
He was convicted and sentenced to 21 months in prison in another case filed with the Gulshan police station over an alleged act of sabotage.
The Rapid Action Battalion arrested Altaf Hossain, also a former home minister and chief of the Bangladesh Air Force, on November 5 in the Tongi area near Dhaka.
New Age
