PHOTO: ANISUR RAHMAN

FROM PAGE 5

Going into greater detail of what he and his law chamber do and have done for the students, he says, “When a student is arrested and their parents or friends contact us, we stand on their behalf in court. We have been trying to get them out on bail and to prove that the cases are false. For example, a few days ago, we handled the case of a BAF Shaheen College student who got arrested. We produced all his documents in court and submitted that he is merely a student who could not be involved in what is a false case.”

Nonetheless, Rasel acknowledges that obtaining bail is an arduous task that could take a long time. At the time of conducting his interview, none of the people arrested since July 15 had been granted bail, though, as of now, the courts have granted them to some HSC examinees, and the Prime Minister herself has given an order to release arrested students.

For reason of the apparent difficulty of securing bails for arrested students, Sabbir Hossain Sifat, who is the founder and convenor of Progressive Lawyers - Bangladesh, an organisation that has worked to ensure students get proper legal aid, advises the parents and guardians of students taken into custody to locate and arrive at the police stations where their children are being held before arrest is formally made. In his view, that is ideal because they would be able to have them released before a charge sheet is prepared and the case is brought to court, thus sparing the student and themselves from a world of trouble.

Regarding what he has seen and heard of the students who have been arrested, Sifat says, “While the law clearly states that they must be brought before the court within 24 hours, in many cases the accused are not being brought before the court even when days have passed. And in many cases where the students are duly brought before court, we have heard that they suffered physical or mental abuse.”

And just like that, as students see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and feel on their very skin and bones such things that may amount to the violation of sacred constitutional values and human rights, the lawyers mentioned above, in addition to the many whom we see on television and social media, work to keep justice alive.

There have been moments of success, such as the release of the six coordinators following the writ. There are questions, such as on what law were the coordinators taken in the first place or why are the people being shot. There is no shortage of roadblocks and consequently, there is no lack of determination.

As Barrister Aneek R. Haque recounts, “The pro-government lawyers kept on heckling us as we submitted before the court. We couldn’t even sit – the whole time we were standing because they had occupied all the space. They even resorted to shouting to drown out our voices. But regardless of any of that, we have carried on.”