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Shahriar, Shafi freed

Saber placed on a week's remand

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Writer-journalist Shahriar Kabir and Awami League (AL) leader Shafi Ahmed were freed from Chittagong and Rangpur jails respectively yesterday evening after each were detained in prison for one month.
But writer and columnist Professor Muntasir Mamun was not released because the Dinajpur Jail officials did not receive his release order issued by the High Court on January 4 till yesterday evening. His family members waited expectantly at the jail gate for several hours. He is supposed to be freed today.
Meanwhile, AL Organising Secretary Saber Hossain Chowdhury yesterday was placed
on a seven-day police remand in connection with the Mymensingh cinema blast case.
Police arrested all of them on December 8 with no specific charges. Later, they were implicated in different cases. When they obtained bail from the High Court, they were given a one-month preventive detention under the Special Powers Act. But the High Court later declared the detention orders illegal.
Family members and wellwishers received Shahriar at the Chittagong Jail Gate yesterday. Immediately afterwards, he went to the Chittagong Shahid Minar and placed a wreath there. Different organisations and prominent per-
sonalities came to the Shahid Minar to greet Shahriar.
"I have stepped into a bigger jail from a smaller one," said Shahriar. "The coalition government has turned the country into a bigger jail through their misrule," he elaborated. Shahriar said he has become the victim of political vendetta of the present government. Some other journalists are also suffering similar fate, he added.
Earlier, Shahriar was arrested on November 22, 2001 and released following a High Court order after being put in prison for two months.
Shahriar told The Daily Star that the government cannot tolerate any sorts of difference in political opin-
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ions. That is why it tends to put those with divergent political opinions behind the bar.
Shahriar and Shafi started for Dhaka along with their family members last night.
After his release from Rangpur Jail, Shafi's wife advocate Tahera Khondoker and local Awami League leaders received him.
However, the authorities at Rangpur Jail initially refused to free Shafi when his family members went there with the High Court order. The jail authorities told them that they had received a fresh order to detain Shafi for 90 days.
Shafi's family members told the jail authorities that the fresh detention order was illegal since it was issued on December 29, 2002 while the High Court declared the order illegal on January 4. The authorities then contacted high officials and released Shafi.
Meanwhile, the Mymensingh
District Cognizance Court yesterday placed Awami League leader Saber, also the political secretary to the AL president, on a seven-day police remand for interrogation in connection with Ajanta cinema blast case. The magistrate rejected the plea for Saber's bail placed by his lawyer advocate Sahara Khatun and others. The investigation officer of the case CID ASP Abdul Khaleque put up the remand prayer. However, he could not tell reporters when and where he would remand Saber.
The lawyers then filed another petition for a stay on the remand order saying that they would contest the remand order in the High Court. However, the magistrate rejected the plea, too. Saber was later sent from the court to the Mymensingh Jail.
Saber was shown as an arrestee on December 28 in the Mymensingh cinema blast case. He was transferred to the Mymensingh Jail from
the Sylhet Jail Monday night. Saber's supporters were chanting slogans demanding his immediate release while he was taken to the court yesterday amidst tight security.
Saber was arrested earlier on October 20 last year and released following a High Court order after having been in prison for one month.
Meanwhile, another Awami League leader Talukder Abdul Khaleque was shown to be an arrestee for the fourth time in a murder case. He was arrested on November 1, 2002 without any specific charge. Later, he was detained for one month under the SPA. However, the High Court declared the detention illegal.
Talukder has been implicated in a series of murder cases one after another as he continued to secure bail from the court. Now he is in the Rajshahi Central Jail.