Says HC about DB’s handling of 6 protest organisers
The High Court yesterday expressed its displeasure at detective branch taking six coordinators of quota protests to its office and showing the media that they are having food there.
“Don’t mock the nation,” said the HC.
“Who told you to do this? Why did they do it? Whoever is taken there [DB office] is made to sit at the dining table,” the HC bench of Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam and Justice SM Masud Hossain Dolon said during a hearing on a petition.
Supreme Court lawyers Aynunnahar Siddiqua and Manzur-Al-Matin yesterday filed the petition seeking orders to have the six protesters released immediately and to stop the use of bullets against protesters.
The bench set today for further hearing and passing orders on the petition.
Quota reform protest organisers Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud were reportedly picked up on July 19.
Nahid was found on July 20 at Purbachal and Asif was found near Niketon on July 24.
Nahid and Asif, along with protest coordinator Abu Baker Majumder, were taken again from a city hospital on July 26.
“Who told you to do this? Why did they do it? Whoever is taken there [DB office] is made to sit at the dining table.”
— HC bench
Protest organisers Hasnat Abdullah and Sarjis Alam were picked up on July 27 and Nusrat Tabassum on July 28.
In photos and footage provided by the DB on Sunday, they were seen having food inside a room at the DB office. The DB also distributed a video clip in which Nahid was seen calling off their protest programme.
During yesterday’s hearing on the petition, lawyers ZI Khan Panna, Sara Hossain, Aneek R Haque and Manzur-Al-Matin placed arguments before the bench supporting the petition.
Additional attorneys general SM Munir Mohammad Mehedi Hassan Chowdhury and Sk Md Morshed opposed it.
The bench also heard arguments from senior lawyer Md Azahar Ullah Bhuiyan.
ZI Khan Panna told the court that what was taking place in the name of the spirit of the Liberation War cannot be acceptable at all.
He said the students cannot stay in the dorms and homes, their mobile phones are being seized and checked. They cannot go to their academic institutions safely and there is curfew at night. In which country in the world are these happening?
At that, Additional Attorney General SM Munir told ZI Khan Panna that he should make such arguments in the political arena.
Sara Hossain then told the HC that six protest coordinators have been kept detained in violation of the law and the constitution.
There is no provision in the law, the constitution, and the Appellate Division’s guidelines that permit the law enforcers to detain any person in the name of providing safety, she said.
She urged the court to either order the authorities concerned to immediately release the six or produce them before a court.
Aneek R Haque told the HC bench that use of bullets against the students must be stopped.
“Those, who have been shot dead in the movement, are also the assets of the state. We don’t want any deaths. There are many ways to control the students’ movement,” he argued.
Manzur-Al-Matin argued that the home minister has said 147 people died in the clashes and according to a Prothom Alo report more than 200 people have been killed.
The government has to take the responsibility, he said.
Foreign media, including Al Jazeera, has published reports on the firing on students.
According to Al Jazeera’s footage, law enforcers have fired as close as 20 yards away from the protesters, he said, adding that firing on demonstrators from helicopters cannot be allowed.
The six coordinators were made to make a statement from the DB office, he said, adding that Nahid was beaten up.
Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam, presiding judge of the bench, said there were some political issues that should not be brought before the court.
The court also asked the lawyers not to make any arguments for which the court can be made controversial.
Additional Attorney General Mehedi Hassan Chowdhury said the petition was not acceptable as it urged HC directives to prohibit law enforcers from firing on demonstrations.
“Can the petitioners ensure that BTV Bhaban, Setu Bhaban, Metro rail stations, and hundreds of vehicles and establishments would not be vandalised and torched and the prisoners in jails will not escape?”
Mehedi argued the law enforcers have taken the six coordinators into custody to ensure their security and that they have not been detained or arrested.
But the petitioners said the six have been detained by the DB, he said, arguing that the petition had not been properly prepared.
The court then asked the petitioners to reword.
Additional Attorney General Sk Md Morshed also said the six were not detained or arrested.
The HC then asked if law enforcers could keep the six confined for days without detaining them.
Additional Attorney General Morshed said the family members of the six have not claimed they were detained or arrested and have not filed the petition.
Source: The Daily Star
