High Court grants bail for sacked Sylhet mayor Ariful in Kibria murder

Sacked Sylhet mayor Ariful Haque Chowdhury has secured bail from the High Court in a case over the killing of former minister Shah AMS Kibria.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 6 Sept 2016, 09:19 AM
Updated : 6 Sept 2016, 09:19 AM

The bench of Justice Syed Muhammad Dastagir Husain and Justice Md Mozibur Rahman Miah gave the order on Tuesday after concluding hearings of a rule it had earlier issued.
 
The State said they would move the Appellate Division against the decision.
 
Kibria, finance minister in Awami League’s 1996-2001 government, and four others were killed in a grenade attack on Jan 27, 2005 while returning to Habiganj after a rally.
 
The then general secretary of the Habiganj Awami League, Abdul Majid Khan had filed two cases over the attacks – one over the killings and the other over the explosions – that very night.
 
Police pressed charges on 10 people on Mar 20 the same year. The plaintiff objected to it the following year.
 
During the 2007-08 caretaker government, the High Court ordered further investigation into the case.
 
On June 20, 2011, investigators accused 14 people, including former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami’s Bangladesh leader Mufti Hannan, in the chargesheet he submitted to the court.
 
But Kibria's wife filed an objection to it eight days later at the Habiganj court.
 
In January the following year, Sylhet’s Speedy Trial Tribunal accepted the objection and ordered further investigation.
 
Following the third probe, charges were pressed on 11 others, including Ariful, a BNP leader from Sylhet, in a supplementary chargesheet in December 2014.
 
On Dec 21, the court ordered their arrests.
 
Eight days later, Ariful surrendered to the trial court and sought bail. He landed in jail as his petition was rejected. He has been behind bars since then.

Ariful, who was elected mayor in 2013, is a member of the Sylhet BNP’s convening committee.
 
The local government ministry sacked him in January 2015 after the court indicted him for the murder of former minister Kibria.