Dhaka, Jul 24 (PTI) A Dhaka court on Thursday sent Bangladesh’s former chief justice ABM Khairul Haque to jail in connection with a murder case during the July uprising in Jatrabari.
The decision came hours after Haque was detained from his residence here.
Witnesses said that police brought 81-year-old Haque to the court complex in the old part of Dhaka around 8.15 pm in a prison van and then escorted him to the second floor of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court through the staircases.
TV footage and media pictures showed that Haque was led into the court handcuffed, wearing a helmet and a bulletproof jacket.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate M Sanaullah ordered him to be sent to jail in connection with the murder case of a teenager — Abdul Kaiyum Ahad, who was shot dead during last year’s violent movement dubbed as the July uprising that toppled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League regime.
Haque was named as one of the accused, while police said that 1,000 to 2,000 people were involved in the killing in the Jatrabari area on the southern outskirts of the capital.
The army troops were present in the court complex as anti-Awami League lawyers and crowd chanted slogans, calling the former chief justice an accomplice to the “fascist” regime.
The mass circulation Prothom Alo said that Haque stood on the dock for 40 minutes with a grim face as the court procedure was underway when no defence lawyer stood for him in the crowded courtroom, while the prosecution demanded that he should be imprisoned.
One of the prosecution lawyers thanked the government of Professor Muhammad Yunus for arresting the former chief justice.
The court officials said that he was the first chief justice in Bangladesh’s history who was arrested and sent to jail.
Haque, who served as the country’s 19th chief justice from 2010 to 2011, was known for presiding over several landmark verdicts, including the 2011 ruling that declared Bangladesh’s nonpartisan caretaker government system unconstitutional. PTI AR AS AS
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