Fakhrul, Abbas come out of jail after a month

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and Standing Committee member Mirza Abbas Monday walked out of jail a month after their arrest on 9 December.

The two opposition leaders were released from Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj around 5:50pm.

They had been denied bail four times in the lower courts before the Appellate Division on Sunday upheld a High Court order granting them bail in a case filed over the clash between police and the party activists at Nayapaltan on 7 December last year.

Getting released from jail, Fakhrul came straight to the BNP's Nayapaltan Central office.

Speaking briefly in front of the party office, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir took a fresh vow to intensify the ongoing movement for ousting the government and restoring democracy and people's voting rights in the country.

"The more they will repress us the more people will burst into anger and defeat them through a movement," he said.

"We will only move forward with our movement and will free all our arrested leaders and activists. We have to intensify our movement to defeat this regime and our movement will be successful," he said.

Fakhrul said the BNP wants to carry out the movement in a peaceful manner.

"Let us come forward to free Bangladesh from the fascist and autocratic rule and restore democracy and people's voting rights. After coming out of jail, we are taking a fresh vow that we will carry on our movement until we succeed," he said.

BNP standing committee member Mirza Abbas said the government had a plan to create violence at Nayapaltan over the BNP's rally on 10 December.

"The government thought we will hold our 10 December rally at Nayapaltan and engage in a clash with police and they will make a political game by shifting the blame on us for the violence," he said.

The BNP leader further said, "I was arrested as I did not give the government a chance to create violence at Nayapaltan on December 10."

Several hundred BNP leaders and activists and the relatives of the two top leaders of the party received them at the jail gate.

On 4 January, Chamber Judge of the Appellate Division Justice Jahangir Hossain fixed Sunday for the hearing of the petition at the full bench of the Appellate Division.

The petition was filed on the same day with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court seeking a stay on the High Court order granting bail to the two BNP leaders in the case.

The High Court granted six months' bail to Fakhrul and Abbas in the case on 3 January.

On 9 December, a team of Detective Branch (DB) of police picked up Fakhrul and Abbas from their homes in separate raids in the capital, a day before the party's mass rally in the capital.

Later, they were arrested in a case over the clash between police and the party activists in the capital's Nayapaltan on 7 December centring the rally. A Dhaka court sent them to jail rejecting their bail pleas. 

BNP, however, arranged the rally in absence of Fakhrul and Abbas and placed a 10-point demand, including the resignation of the current government and holding the next polls under a non-party polls-time government.