After spending 38 days behind bars on charges of child trafficking, four children’s rights activists denied claims that their organisation was unregistered.
Four members of Odommo Bangladesh Foundation, who were granted bail yesterday, said they had submitted registration documents to Rampura police station a few days before their arrest.
As members of the group waited outside the gate of Dhaka Central Jail, Odommo volunteer Mainul Hossain yesterday said he had been hopeful of their release because the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister’s Office Abul Kalam Azad had assured them of help.
“The Assistant Press Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office Ashraful Alam Khokon also helped us a lot,” he said.
Talking to reporters, arrestee Arifur Rahman, known to his Facebook friends as Arian Arif, told the Dhaka Tribune he does not understand why they were taken into custody or what they were being blamed for.
The arrestees – Arifur Rahman, Jakia Sultana, Hasibul Hasan Sabuj and Firoz Alam Khan Shuvo – said the police did not inform them why they had been detained at the time.
The group claims a sub-inspector of the police station concerned looked over the documents and asked them to submit a photocopy of the papers, which they claim to have done.
The day before their arrest another police sub-inspector visited their shelter and spoke with ten of the children staying there. The boys even memorised the officer’s telephone number when he told them to contact him if they were not properly taken care of.
The group declined to name the sub-inspectors because the trial was ongoing.
Arif said on Saturday, September 12, most of the group was at Sadarghat conducting a class for street children. Around 2pm, the manager of Odommo’s shelter home in Banasree, Shuvo, called and said he had been beaten up by some people.
Shuvo told the Dhaka Tribune that one of his assailants was the uncle of one of the children of the home. He and four others attacked him, he said.
The other group members rushed to the house and found that the police were already there. Police then told them they had to accompany the police to the station.
The arrestees claim that nobody spoke to them at the police station. They were taken to the court and then sent on remand.
The police said a drive had been conducted against the shelter after Munir Hossain, the uncle of one of the boys, filed a complaint with Rampura police. Munir then lodged a case under the Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act, 2012.
Odommo Bangladesh opened its first school on January 13, 2013, at the Kali Temple in Shahbagh with some 15 street children.
They then extended their operations to Agargaon, Kamalapur and Sadarghat.
To provide a safe space for underage homeless children who do not have a permanent place to live, they started “Bayanno,” a shelter home in Banasree, on December 1 last year. Jakia is co-ordinator of the shelter and Shuvo is its chairman.