Prothom Alo editor gets bail over death of student

The High Court has granted four-week bail to Prothom Alo Editor Matiur Rahman over the death of school student Nayeemul Abrar.

Rahman will have to surrender to the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court at the end of the bail period, where the magistrate court will consider any further appeal for bail.

Justice Obaidul Hassan and Justice AKM Zahirul Huq issued the order on Monday following the hearing of bail appeals by six people, including Rahman.

The judges also ordered the law enforcement agencies not to harass other five people named in the charge-sheet who appealed for bail in advance.

The five others who filed bail petitions are Anisul Hoque, associate editor of the newspaper, Mahitul Alam, senior assistant editor of Kishor Alo, Kabir Bakul, the head of events and activation of Kishor Alo, and Shah Paran Tushar and Shuvashish Pramanik, assistants of events and activation of Kishor Alo.

Abrar was electrocuted during an event organised by Prothom Alo’s youth magazine Kishor Alo on the school campus.

Abrar, 15, a nonresident student of class nine in Dhaka Residential Model College, received electric shock from a power generator set up behind a stage erected for 'Ki Ananda' -- an event organised by Kishor Alo, a magazine published by Rahman.

After the fatal electric shock, Abrar was taken to the Universal Medical College Hospital in Mohakhali where doctors pronounced him dead.

His father Mujibur Rahman filed a case with Dhaka’s Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court on Nov 6 alleging that negligence on part of the organisers led to his son’s death.