The High Court on Monday called ‘a mockery with the nation’ the act of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Detective Branch chief’s taking meal with six confined coordinators of the Students Movement Against Discrimination platform, picking them up from different places illegally without any charge.
The Dhaka metropolitan detective branch chief, Harun-or-Rashid, on Monday posted on the social media the photographs of his taking meal with the six confined quota reform movement leaders—Nahid Islam, Abu Baker Mazumdar, Asif Mahmud, Sarjis Alam, Hasnat Abdullah and Nusrat Tabassum.
Later, the six student leaders from the detective branch custody announced the withdrawal of their protest programmes in a video message provided to some media outlets.
The High Court bench of Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam and Justice SM Masud Hossain Dolan called for stopping such mockery as it heard a writ petition filed by two Supreme Court lawyers Aynunnahar Siddiqua and Manzur-Al-Matin, challenging the legality of putting the six students of different universities in confinement in the name of taking them under detective branch’s custody.Â
The lawyers also sought a court directive to the secretaries of the law and home ministries, chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, inspector general of the police, chief of the Army Staff, chief of the Naval Staff, and chief of the Air Force to explain why the use of live bullets on the protesters would not be declared illegal.
They also sought a court directive to the government authorities to release the confined students from the detective branch custody immediately.
The lawyers also sought a rule on the government authorities to explain why they should not be directed to produce the six students before the High Court to satisfy it that they were not held in custody illegally.
The court set Tuesday [today] for passing order on the writ petition.  Â
The court rebuked additional attorney general SM Munier when he told the court that the six student movement coordinators were seen taking food with forks and spoons with the detective branch chief.
‘Who asked (him) to do this?’ the court asked the government attorney.
‘Catching people at random and taking them to the dining table like the politicians…doing mockery with the nation,’ the court said.   Â
Fellows and family members on Sunday alleged that law enforcement agencies picked up the students, mostly from private hospitals where they were undergoing treatment.
Some of the coordinators who were admitted to hospital after release from confinement alleged that they were blindfolded and brutally tortured and beaten by people who identified themselves as members of law enforcement agencies.
Senior lawyers ZI Khan Panna, Aneek R Haque and Sara Hossain questioned the legality of law enforcers firing on protesters indiscriminately.Â
They argued that that the law enforcers had no right to pick or confine any citizens without any charges and an arrest warrants.
Sara Hossain argued that the law did not permit the law enforcers to confine a citizen in the name of safe custody.Â
Additional attorney generals SM Munier, Sk Md Morshed and Mehedi Hassan Chowdhury justified the action of the law enforcement agencies to contain the protesters and law and order.