A Dhaka court has sent 24 members of the Bangladesh Chhatra Odhikar Parishad to jail following clashes with the Chhatra League at a memorial event for BUET student Abrar Fahad and Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Shahidul Islam issued orders in two cases on Saturday, fixing Oct 11 as the date for their bail hearing, according to Deputy Commissioner of police Jashim Uddin, reports bdnews24.com.
Defence lawyer Muzahidul Islam said the court also instructed jail authorities to ensure treatment for several arrestees, who fell ill.
Earlier in the day, Gono Odhikar Parishad and its student wing Bangladesh Chhatra Odhikar Parishad vowed to escalate protests if the arrestees were not released. They rallied in a protest march from the group’s offices in Paltan around 11 am to the Old Dhaka court and then locked the gate.
Nurul Haque Nur, the member secretary of Gono Odhikar Parishad and former leader of Bangladesh Chhatra Odhikar Parishad, demanded justice. The protest at the court premises ended an hour later.
The Bangladesh Chhatra Odhikar Parishad first hogged the limelight through a campaign forcing the authorities to abolish the quota for freedom fighters’ descendants in government jobs.
Then a co-convenor of the organisation, Nur was later elected the vice-president of Dhaka University Central Students’ Union. The organisation that emerged as a Dhaka University-based network has members across Bangladesh now.
On Friday, the Chhatra Odhikar Parishad gathered at the Raju Memorial Statue on the Dhaka University campus to commemorate the third anniversary of the murder of Abrar, a student of electrical and electronic engineering at BUET.
The rally was broken up by an attack from the Chhatra League who drove the activists out of the campus, injuring 15 of them.
As the injured protesters were taken to DMCH, the Chhatra League members chased and beat the activists. Shahbagh police detained some leaders and members of the Chhatra Odhikar Parishad later in the day.