Dr Kamal Hossain wants to meet Hasina to demand release of student protesters

Jurist-politician Dr Kamal Hossain is seeking an audience with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to demand the release of the student protesters before the Eid-ul-Azha.

The students were arrested during the road safety movement and protests for quotas in government jobs.

The Gono Forum president expressed his willingness to meet Hasina at a discussion in Dhaka on Friday, five days before the Eid.

“You certainly believe that I am your well-wisher. At the age of 81, I urge you to release the boys so that they can celebrate the Eid at home. Please show kindness. It is my request as a small human being – please release them,” he said, addressing the prime minister.

“Prime minister, I will meet you, want to meet you.

“She is very busy. She has the pressure of work as the guardian of the state. But if you can give 10 minutes, we can talk,” he added.

He said he would send a written statement on the quota reform protests and road safety movement.

“I hope you will take our words into consideration,” the senior lawyer said.

“What have the students demanded? Reforms. It’s a good word in all countries,” continued Dr Kamal, who led the panel that drafted Bangladesh's Constitution in 1972.

The Supreme Court lawyer, once an Awami League leader and a former minister in Bangabandhu's cabinet, also said Bangabandhu would have forgiven the students.

“And I don’t expect any less from Bangabandhu’s daughter (Hasina),” he added.

He condemned attacks on students protesting for quota reforms. “He who had broken a protester’s leg with a hammer needs psychological treatment. Can someone do such a job if he is not insane? It can’t happen in independent Bangladesh,” he said.

Pro-BNP professionals’ leader Ganasasthaya Kendra founder Zafrullah Chowdhury and BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s Adviser Fazlur Rahman, among others, spoke at the programme.

Police have arrested a total of 97 people, mostly university students, in 51 cases over alleged violence and instigation on the social media during the student protests for safe roads in Dhaka.

Photographer-activist Shahidul Alam, actress and model Quazi Nawshaba Ahmed, and BUET student Daiyan Nafis are behind bars pending trial for allegedly trying to change the course of the non-political student movement through social media posts.

The law enforcers have also arrested several other students involved in the quota reform protests.