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Arrest frenzy continues in city

Staff Correspondent
Blanket arrests continued to smother Dhaka yesterday ahead of the Awami Leauge's April 30 deadline for unseating the government, while anxious relatives thronged jail gales with bail documents for the release of the 'victimsofmindlcsspolitical maneuvering'.
Police arrested 500 people in front of the main opposition party's headquarters on Bangabandhu Avenue and other places in the same frenzy that sawhundreds of innocent people's arrest and hurried conviction over thelastthreedays.
Rights activists termed the police action and indiscriminate conviction in court, kicked off in the run-up to AL's Hawa Bhaban siege programme, as a gross violation of human rights, the constitution and a High Court ruling that asks law-enforcers to exercise caution to arrest people on suspicion.
Amid a fog of chaos and emotive scenes. Dhaka Central Jail released more than 815 people until yesterdayevening.
They said they would release 1,370 such people by
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last night, but the figure could not be confirmed immediately.
"We expect to release prisoners in 50-60 a batch on completion of the prison formalities until early Friday morning," a jail official said.
Between Monday and Wednesday, police picked up at least 5,000 people without any charge at different bus, train and launch terminals on their arrival in the capital and sent 2,910 of them, including 68 women, to the cramming jail largely without producing them before courts.
The 2,500-capacity central jail crammed with over 13,000 prisoners when police sent the innocent people there.
"Such arrests will continue until April 30 to preempt any Awami Leauge gathering that many destroy peace," a top police officer said, requesting anonymity.
Extra policemen, including from jail, special and detective branches, were deployed to the central jail gate to control the milling crowd.
MINDLESS ARRESTS
The High Court ruling asks lawenforcers to judiciously use Section 54 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPc) that deals with arrest on suspicion, send the arrestees to court within 24 hours of arrest and inform their relatives of the netting in the same period.
"But police violated the ruling on every count. They picked up people at will, did not take most of them to court and did not inform their relatives," a rights activist said.
Among the milling crowd at the jail gate was Rabeya from Mirhazaribagh. "I have been waiting here since 6:00am today, but I'm yet to know from the jail authorities where my son Akhter is on the list of people who will be released today," she told this correspondent at 6:17pm.
"My son was arrested at a saloon in the neighbourhood when he was having a shave."
Shahina was also waiting for information on her brother since early morning.
"I tried to find out several times if my brother, Siraj, is on the list of people selected for release today. But policemen on duty misbehaved with me and blocked my way to the information," she alleged.
NIGHMARE
Some of them who walked out of jail on bail narrated their nightmares to relatives at the jail gate, often breaking down in tears.
"I was forced to keep standing in a dark, dingy and smelling room cramming with over 1,000 people. I could not even sleep for a moment," Shahid, a resident of Narinda, said.
"Many young men cried in anguish and scrambled for a fresh breath. Some of them demanded space for sleeping only to be frowned upon by jail authorities.
"'You people are lucky that you have a space to stand out the time' one of the jail man told them in reply."
Shahid said he was arrested on Monday afternoon when he was passing through his locality on a rickshaw.
Asked how the jail authorities coped with the sudden gush of prisoners, a jail official admitted the prisoners' sufferings.
"All the prisoners were accommodated in 'Amdani ward' and most prisoners had to spend time standing in a small hall room."