The court on Thursday granted bail to the 16-year-old college student Md Alfi Shahriar Mahim, who was sent to jail over the murder case of Begum Rokeya University student Abu Sayeed.
Judge Mustafa Kamal of Rangpur Women and Child Abuse Suppression Tribunal-1 granted bail to Md Alfi Shahriar Mahim.
His bail hearing, originally scheduled for August 4, was rescheduled amid widespread criticism on social media against arrest of the minor in the murder case of Abu Sayeed, who was allegedly shot dead by the police during the quota reform protests near the campus on July 16.
Defence lawyer Jobaidul Islam told 抖阴精品 that the police did not follow child protection laws by arresting him as the boy was only 16-year-and-ten-month-old.
鈥業n my 37 years of professional life, this is the first time that someone is being charged with murder without even explaining what they did,鈥� he said.
He also said, 鈥楾here was no explanation in the case documents about what he did and how he did the murder.鈥�
Unidentified accused persons do not mean police could arrest any people at random without having proper information about their involvement, Jobaidul said.
Mahim was innocent as he had no such weapons to murder someone, he said, adding that the police are attempting to cover up the incident by arresting the 16-year-old.
Mahim鈥檚 father Md Shah Jalal said, 鈥楳y son did not go out on July 16 and July 17. He went to his college on July 18 and got stuck in the violence between protesters and police.鈥�
He questioned how someone could commit a murder if he did not go out on the day of the murder.
The family members were now in relief as Mahim returned home, he said.
Mahim was arrested on July 18 and sent to jail on July 19 but the matter drew people鈥檚 attention on Wednesday after Mahim鈥檚 sister shared the incident in a Facebook post.
After the post went viral on Facebook with thousands of shares, they were called to meet Rangpur Metropolitan Police commissioner Md Moniruzzaman.
Police officials on Wednesday denied that Mahim was arrested in the Abu Sayeed murder case.
They also said that the police were not aware of Mahim鈥檚 age at the time of his arrest.
On July 16, a video footage showed that the police were shooting at Abu Sayeed, who posed no physical threat to law enforcers, during the quota reform demonstration near the university.
The Rangpur police, however, claimed that Abu Sayeed鈥檚 death was caused by the gunfire from the protesters, and he was not a victim of police firing in the statement of a case filed following the death of Abu Sayeed.
At least 2,000鈥�3,000 unidentified people, including Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir activists, were accused in the case.
According to the case鈥檚 first information report, the demonstrators fired shots and threw brick chunks from different directions.
At one stage, a student was seen falling to the ground when his classmates took Sayeed, 23, to Rangpur Medical College Hospital where the on-duty doctor declared him dead, the statement added.
