Ashulia OC summoned

Staff Correspondent: The High Court (HC) summoned Mohsinul Quader, officer-in-charge (OC) of Ashulia Police Station to explain why Nazmul Hossain, a student of Jahangirnagar University (JU), also an accused in a vandalism case, was handcuffed while undergoing treatment.

The court also asked the OC to appear on May 31 and give an explanation in this regard.

Besides, the court issued a rule asking the authorities concerned of the government to explain why handcuffing Nazmul during treatment should not be declared illegal.

The HC bench of Justice Salma Masud Chowdhury and Justice AKM Jahirul Haque came up with the order and a suo moto rule on Monday following a news report published today on an English Daily under a headline ‘Handcuffed to hospital bed’.

Lawyer SM Rezaul Karim brought the news report into the court's cognizance.

After taking the matter into cognizance, the court passed the order today.

The home secretary, inspector general of police and deputy inspector general of police of Dhaka range, superintendent of police of Dhaka and officer-in-charge of Ashulia Police Station have been made respondents to the rule.

They will have to reply to the rule within two weeks.

Nazmul Hossain fell sick on Saturday while protesting the deaths of two JU students in a road crash in Savar. Yesterday, police shown 42 JU students including Nazmul arrested in the case.

He was handcuffed when he was undergoing treatment at Enam Medical Hospital yesterday.

Nazmul Hasan Rana, a student of 43rd batch of Marketing Department, and Arafat, a student of Microbiology Department, were killed as a bus knocked them down in C&B area on the highway around 5:00am on Friday (May 26).

Following the incident, the university students put up a barricade on the busy highway from 11:00am to 5:00pm on Saturday, demanding the immediate arrest of the killer driver and bringing him to justice.

At one stage, police swooped on the agitated students to disperse the gathering which triggered a clash, leaving at least 20 people, including the JU chief security officer, students and journalists injured.

Later, the agitating students laid a siege to the VC's residence and carried out vandalism there.

They also swooped on the teachers when they were trying to prevent them from vandalising the VC's residence, leaving at least 10 teachers injured.

During the incident, the university authorities called in police to bring the situation under control. Police then arrested some 42 unruly from the VC's residence at midnight.

The University administration filed a case with Ashulia Police Station against a group of rowdy students on charge of assaulting teachers and carrying out vandalism.

risingbd/DHAKA/May 29, 2017/Mehedi/Amirul