A Dhaka court on Monday granted bail to 39 of the 219 Bangladeshi expatriates, who recently returned from Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain, and were jailed for their alleged involvement in attempts to tarnish the image of the government.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Devdash Chandra Adhikary passed the orders after hearing separate bail petitions filed by the counsels of the accused people seeking bail for their clients.
Sub-Inspector Md Shafiqul Islam, the general recording officer of Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court, opposed the bail petitions saying the detained accused were directly involved in attempts to tarnish the image of the government.
Following their arrivals, the expatriates were sent for 14-day quarantine at the army-operated quarantine facility in Diabari.
On July 5, a Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Dhaka passed the order to send the expatriates to jail after Md Shafiullah, an inspector of Turag police station, and also the investigation officer of the case, produced them before the court seeking an order to keep them in jail until the investigation is completed in the case.
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In the forwarding report, the investigation officer said the arrestees were convicted for different terms of punishment for their involvement in offences committed in Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the governments of the three countries commuted their punishments and sent them back to Bangladesh.
Upon their arrival, they were sent to an army-controlled quarantine centre for 14 days. There, the arrestees were hatching conspiracies to tarnish the image of the government by resorting to destructive or anti-state activities.
After getting information about their anti-state activities, Turag police immediately reported the matter to higher authorities of the government and submitted a petition with the Dhaka court for showing them arrested under section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.