COMILLA ARSON ATTACK SC vacates stay of trial of Khaleda, 77 BNP leaders

The Appellate Division on Tuesday vacated a High Court order that had stayed the trial in Comilla arson attack case against Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia and 77 other leaders of the party.
There will be no legal bar to resumption of the trial of jailed Khaleda and others in the case filed for the death of seven people in arson attack on a bus, attorney general Mahbubey Alam told reporters after the apex’s order.
He said that the case was pending with the Comilla Special Tribunal-1 for hearing on acceptability of charge sheet. 
Appellate Division judge in chamber Justice Hasan Foez Siddique also posted for March 29 a full court hearing on a government petition filed on December 7, 2017 for permission to appeal against the High Court order issued on October 25, 2017. 
On Tuesday, the attorney general moved the petition for cancelling the High Court order so that the trial of the former prime minister could resume.
The chamber court rejected the verbal prayer of advocate-on-record Md Zahirul Islam seeking adjournment of the hearing on behalf of BNP lawyer Mahbub Uddin Khokon. 
Earlier on November 13, 2017, the chamber court dropped from list of hearing the government’s provisional petition for vacating the stay of the trial proceedings in arson attack case. 
On October 25, 2017 the High Court stayed the proceedings in the case asking the government to explain in four weeks why the case proceedings would not be quashed. 
The High Court had passed the order after hearing a petition filed by BNP joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, implicated in the case.
On February 2, 2015, seven passengers were burnt to death and 25 others were injured in an arson attack on a bus at Jagmohanpur of Chauddagram, upazila, on Dhaka-Chittagong Highway.
The arson attack was occurred while the BNP -led alliance’s 72-hour countrywide general strike coinciding with nonstop road-rail-waterway blockade.
Khaleda was not named in the first information report filed by the police against 56 people on February 3, 2015.
On March 2, 2017, the investigation officer submitted charge sheet against 78 BNP leaders, including Khaleda, BNP joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi and 20 top BNP leaders under Section 15(3)/25D of the Special Powers Act 1974 for causing damage to public property.
Khaleda and the 77 accused also face murder charges in connection with the killings of the seven passengers in the arson attack, according to the case records. 
Earlier on February 8, the Dhaka Special Judge’s Court-5 jailed Khaleda for five years in Zia Orphanage Trust graft case and sent her to erstwhile Dhaka Central Jail in old Dhaka.
Khaleda is now facing 34 more cases. Four graft cases were filed until Awami League assumed power in 2009 while the rest of the cases, including on charge of sedition, political violence and setting vehicles on fire, were filed in the past nine years. 

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net