A court on Monday sentenced 15 leaders and activists of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) including the party chairperson's advisor Habibur Rahman Habib and party vice-chairman and former lawmaker M. Shahjahan to four years imprisonment each, in two separate cases.
As the convicts stood before the court, Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Jasim sentenced them to two years imprisonment, each, for setting fire to a bus, and two years more for obstructing police from doing their work.
The court also fined them Tk10,000 each, in default, to suffer one month more in jail.
The remaining convicts are former lawmaker Mohammad Ahsan Habib Lincoln, BNP's village government affairs assistant secretary M Belal Ahmed, joint publicity secretary M Shamimur Rahman Shamim, Tauhidul Islam Tuhin, Monirul Haque Monir, M Didarul Islam, Masud Rana, Abdur Razzak, Ziaul Islam Jewel, M Arif, M Nishan Mia, M Mahmudul Hasan Sumon and Mozammel Haque.
On the other hand, the court acquitted four more accused in the case M Kofil Uddin, Din Islam, Mohammad Mamun and Aminul Islam, as the charges against them were not proved.
According to the case, on January 4, 2015, around 5:30pm, a group of BNP men set a bus on fire at Pragati Sarani under Vatara police station and create chaos, during the ongoing blockade of the 20-party alliance to deliberately obstruct the police from doing their work.
Sub-Inspector Nazrul Islam of vatara police station filed this case the same day.
Charge sheets were pressed against Habibur Rahman Habib and 19 others on May 12 of that year.
