HC rejects Sangram editor’s bail plea

The High Court yesterday refused to grant bail to Abul Asad, editor of Bangla daily Sangram, in a case filed under Digital Security Act on charges of "circulating provocative report and sedition".

The bench of Justice Jahangir Hossain Selim passed the order following a virtual hearing on a bail petition by Asad.

It said lawyers for the accused may place the petition before it after regular functions of the court resume.

Asad is now in Kashimpur jail. A Dhaka court sent him to jail on December 14, said his lawyer Shishir Manir.

During the hearing, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam vehemently opposed the bail petition, saying that the accused has committed a serious offence by terming convicted war criminal Abdul Quader Molla a martyr in his newspaper.

Asad's lawyer Advocate Khandker Mahbub Hossain prayed to the HC to grant his client bail, saying that he is 80 and suffering in jail for five months with asthma and eye problems.

Afzal Hossain, a freedom fighter, filed the case with Hatirjheel Police Station. Police detained Asad on December 13 after mob vandalised the daily's office, over publishing a report that termed Quader Molla a "martyr".

Molla, former assistant secretary general of Jamaat and known infamously as "The butcher of Mirpur" during the Liberation War, was hanged in 2013 after being convicted in a case for committing crimes against humanity during the war by the Supreme Court on September 17 that year.