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‘We will make a statement about our stand on the movement soon’, coordinator Hasnat Abdullah says
Published : 01 Aug 2024, 03:24 PM
The six coordinators of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, the platform for the quota reform protests, have been released from the custody of the police Detective Branch and have been handed over to their families.
The protest organisers were freed around 1:30pm on Thursday, said coordinator Nahid Islam’s father Badrul Islam.
He told bdnews24.com, “They each were sent home on DB cars in the afternoon. They had staged a 32-hour hunger strike while in the DB custody. They are exhausted now. That’s why they are not speaking to the media at the moment.”
The freed six coordinators are - Nahid Islam, Sarjis Alam, Hasnat Abdullah, Abu Baker Majumder, Asif Mahmud and Nusrat Tabassum.
After being freed from DB custody, one of the coordinators Hasnat Abdullah told bdnews24.com: “The six of us were not freed at the same time. The police cars drove us home separately. The gap between each release was 10 minutes. We will make a statement about our stand on the movement soon.”
Law Minister Anisul Huq said at the Secretariat, “A case was filed at the High Court Division challenging the custody of the six coordinators for safety. I heard a judge was on leave for illness during the hearing of the petition on Wednesday.”
“It is also true that they had filed a general diary seeking their own security. As they are saying that they do not want it any more, we did not obstruct them and they left.”
On Jul 26, three coordinators of the movement – Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder - were taken to the DB office in the capital’s Minto Road from the hospital. However, the government did not make any statement about them for several hours.
That evening, Additional Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Mohammad Harunor Rashid said they were taken into custody by DB police for questioning and their own security.
Amid arguments on the matter, two other coordinators – Sarjis Alam and Hasnat Abdullah – were taken into DB custody on Jul 27 and Nusrat Tabassum on Jul 28.
