Savar’s Rana Plaza owner Mohammad Sohel Rana left the court room on Tuesday amidst severe verbal assault from those present.
He and the owners of garment factories housed in the collapsed building left the courtroom amidst an uproar in demand of his death penalty.
Sohel Rana along with the five arrested garment owners were brought to face a High Court bench at around 9 am and they entered the courtroom at around 10:30am. Rana in handcuffs was seated in the last row of the benches and wore a carefree expression on his face.
The accused were called one by one to the front of the courtroom after the Attorney General made his statement. Eventually they were asked to move to the back of the room and they returned to the southwest corner.
The judges got down from their seat at around 1:00pm and the accused remained cordoned off in the back of the court room.
Rana was conversing with the law enforcers who was condoning him off in court and even laughed out at one point.
A young lawyer present in the courtroom took exception to his gesture with a severe verbal assault on him and soon Rana was overwhelmed with protest.
Curious people began to crowd near the courtroom and police fortified Rana and the garment owners with helmets and bullet proof vests.
Police failed to clear the gathering on the staircase adjacent to the courtroom on the first floor and they were eventually forced to escort Sohel Rana through the crowd.
It took the law enforcers nearly five minutes to walk Rana down the stairs with people screaming in protest around him. He was taken out of the backdoor of the court house where people were already gathered.
They began screaming for his death penalty as soon as he was brought out of the building. The shouts seemed to grow louder with every minute as Rana waited for the police vehicle to take him away.
The slogans for his ‘hanging’ continued as police put him into the vehicle when it arrived, but the protesters gathered around it.
The microbus carrying Rana gradually moved through the crowd followed by a prison van carrying Rana Plaza’s garment owners along with another police car and left the court premises.
Rana Plaza crumbled into huge heaps of debris with nearly 3,500 workers on Apr 24. Rana was arrested on Sunday in bordering Benapole’s Ballfield where he was hiding in an attempt to flee to India.
The garment owners who were produced before the court are EtherTex owner Anisur Rahman, Phantom Apparels and Phantom Tac owner Aminul Islam, New Wave Bottom owner Mahmudur Rahman Tapas and New Wave Style owner Bazlus Samad Adnan.
The High Court on Tuesday directed authorities to stop transferring assets owned by Rana and the garment owners.
Source: bd news24
