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Magistrate violates law in sentencing arrestees

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
A magistrate yesterday violated a Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) ordinance by sentencing 62 women, arrested ahead of the Awami League's Hawa Bhaban siege programme, to three-day imprisonment before the police took them to court.
As per the ordinance, every arrestee has to be produced before a court to defend oneself and the judge is to ask whether he or she pleads guilty or not. The magistrate yesterday failed to follow that provision.
The 62 women were punished with imprisonment along with a fine of Tk 50 each, in default of which they would be confined for an additional two days.
The breach of the ordinance by the magistrate prompted anger
Magistrate
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among the lawyers, relatives of the accused and others present in the court, who shouted protests and questioned the validity of the ruling.
Some of the aggrieved attorneys called on the magistrate at his chamber; but he said he acted as per instructions received from 'higher authorities'. Later in the afternoon, the magistrate granted bails to the women.
The advocates also alleged some of the arrestees were charged under Section 74 of the DMP Ordinance, which is applicable to immoral activities.
The same magistrate doled out the same sentence to another 63 men and women on Tuesday, ahead of yesterday's opposition programme to lay siege to Hawa Bhaban, the office of the BNP chairperson.
That batch was arrested in Mirpur earlier in the day for putting up obstacles on footpaths. Some of the arrested women fell sick from being kept in a jam-packed court hajat and had to be hospitalised.
Meanwhile, police yesterday picked up about 200 people from different entry points to the city, mostly from bus, launch and train stations. Of them, the highest number of arrests, 45, was made by Motijheel Police.
Most of the arrests were made under the DMP Ordinance suspecting that the opposition might have been assembling people with arms and explosives from outside the capital for subversive activities yesterday.
Until Tuesday night, police arrested over 2,000 people. Seven hundred of them were produced before court until 5:00pm Wednesday. The rest were scheduled to be produced before the magistrate by 10:00pm last night, court sources said.
Front organisations of the main opposition Awami League called the siege programme of Hawa Bhaban as a part of their movement to unseat the four-party alliance government.