A Bangladesh court denied bail to 33 opposition figures Wednesday including lawmakers and senior officials ahead of their trial over violence at a series of anti-government protests, a state prosecutor said.
The judge’s order sparked demonstrations outside the court by supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), forcing police to use batons to disperse them. “Thirty-three people including BNP secretary-general Mirza Fakhrul Alamgir sought bail after they surrendered to the court. The court denied bail and ordered them to jail custody instead,” prosecutor Abdullah Abu told AFP. Alamgir is not a member of parliament but is the second-highest official of the main opposition BNP. Also among those held were lawmakers and nearly a dozen former ministers. A total of 40 opposition activists from the BNP and its allies are now in prison awaiting trial on charges of torching a vehicle during protests at the end of last month.
Many senior opposition figures went into hiding when they were charged over violence at the demonstrations.
During the protests, a small bomb blast exploded in the Secretariat, home to most ministries, and the Cabinet office, where Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina holds weekly meetings. No one was hurt in the attacks. Bangladesh’s often turbulent politics have returned to near boiling point over the disappearance of BNP’s regional head, Ilias Ali, on April 17. The BNP fear that Ali has been killed and accuse the elite Rapid Action Battalion security force of abducting him on government orders, an allegation that has been flatly rejected. Police found Ali’s car abandoned in an upmarket district of Dhaka. His driver is also missing.
Protests over the disappearance have regularly paralysed the country in recent weeks. Ali is the highest profile opposition politician to have “disappeared” since Hasina took power in January 2009.
