Appellate Division freezes suspected militant Saker’s bail for three months

The Appellate Division has stayed for three months a High Court bail given earlier to Fida Muntasir Saker, son of a former navy official, who had been arrested for having suspected ties to militants.

The five-member Appellate Division bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha gave the order on Monday.

The bench of High Court justices Farid Ahmed and KM Kamrul Kader had granted Saker the six-month bail on Jun 6 in two cases.

The stay order on it came after the State moved the top appeals court against the High Court order.

Additional Attorney General Md Momtaz Uddin Fakir stood for the State in court Monday, while no lawyer represented Saker.

Fakir later told reporters that the court has also ordered police to submit their reports on two cases, in which Saker had been shown arrested, within the three months.

He said Saker’s father Mohammad Saker is a former commander in Bangladesh Navy.

According to case details, Fida Muntasir Saker during questioning reportedly told police that he was the coordinator of banned militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team and had been recruiting new members for the Islamic State.

Police arrested him from Banani DOHS on Jun 7 last year.

The next day, police said they had seized a personal computer’s CPU, three laptops, three mobile phones, a passport and screenshots of his Facebook friend list and pages of different books on militant group Islamic State.

On Jun 18 last year, he was shown arrested in an anti-terrorism case with Uttara West police and a second one on similar charges with Cantonment police on July 12.