The police on Thursday filed two petitions seeking a fresh 17-day remand for the acting secretary general of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, after showing him arrested in two new cases
related to violence.
The Motijheel police sought a 10-day remand for Fakhrul to interrogate him in connection with a case of cocktail blast while the Sutrapur police sought him to be remanded in custody in another case of attack on police.
The Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court posted the hearing on the remand prayers for January 8.
BNP has condemned the government for playing around with the release of Mirza Fakhrul.
The latest move by the police came just a day after the High Court had granted Fakhrul bail for six months on Wednesday in two cases filed with Paltan and Sher-e-Bangla Nagar police stations.
Fakhrul, who was arrested on December 10 by the police in plainclothes in front of the BNP central office at Naya Paltan, was now in Kashimpur jail.
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police filed 38 cases with 20 police stations against leaders and activists of the BNP-led alliance under explosives act, speedy trial act and on other charges, including attacks on police, after the BNP-sponsored road blockade on December 9.
Fakhrul Islam was made an accused in almost all the cases.
BNP spokesperson Tariqul Islam on Thursday demanded immediate and unconditional release of the party’s acting secretary general asking the government to withdraw the remand prayer for the detained leader.
Terming the cases against Fakhrul ‘false and conspiratorial’, he threatened that the government would have to bear all responsibilities for any situation that might arise.
In a statement, Tariqul, also BNP standing committee member, strongly condemned the government for keeping Mirza Fakhrul in jail by implicating him in two fresh cases and seeking remand for him.
He said the High Court on Wednesday had granted Fakhrul bail but the ‘fascist’ Awami League government did not give a damn about the people’s democratic rights.
Tariqul said the government had not only filed two more cases against Fakhrul, but set a ‘heinous example’ by seeking 17 days’ remand for him.