Supreme Court upholds bail for Ariful and Gaus

The Supreme Court has upheld a High Court order that granted bail to former Sylhet mayor Ariful Haque Chowdhury and former Habiganj mayor GK Gaus in two separate cases.

A four-member bench led by Chief Justice SK Sinha passed the order on Tuesday.

GK Gaus was indicted for allegedly leading a grenade attack on Jan 27, 2005 in Boidya Bazar of Habiganj that killed five including former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria.

Abdul Mojid Khan, the then organising secretary of Habiganj Awami League and current general secretary of the unit filed two cases against Gaus for murder and under the explosives act.

Ariful, on the other hand, was accused of leading a bomb attack at a rally in Sunamganj’s Dirai on Jun 21, 2004, that killed one Juba League activist and injured 29 more.

The rally was led by Suranjit Sengupta, member of the Advisory Council of the Awami League.

Dirai police submitted chargesheet to court naming 13  including Ariful Hoque under the Explosives Act.

Both Gaus and Ariful secured bail for six months in the cases on Dec 11 last year from the High Court.

The State then knocked the apex court to scrap the order for the ad interim bail. Hearing the appeal, Chief Justice SK Sinha stayed the High Court’s order and transferred it to the regular bench of Appellate Division to hear it on Jan 2.

Senior Advocate Khandker Mahbub Hossain, Advocate Abdul Halim Kafi and M Masud Rana argued for the two sacked mayors on Tuesday.

They said that now there was no legal hurdle in releasing the mayors as the apex court has also upheld bail granted to them.

Additional Attorney General Md Momtaz Uddin Fakir represented the State.