The remand order given by a Faridpur court for veteran journalist Probir Sikdar was wrong, the law minister has said.
As he is a disabled person, the court should have granted his bail immediately in line with the constitution after the police produced him before the court, Law Minister Anisul Huq told reporters yesterday in response to a query.
“But it happened … somehow … perhaps mistakenly,” he said at his office. “I am sorry for this.”
Anisul, however, termed the bail order given the following day a correction. “There is scope for correction if a wrong order is given for some reason. It is good that the mistake was fixed in the case of Probir Sikdar. There is nothing wrong [in the correction].”
Anisul also said that the local lawyers were wrong as they had decided not to stand for Probir Sikdar at the court “since access to justice is a constitutional right of all the citizens.”
Earlier, Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu and senior Awami League leader Suranjit Sen Gupta criticised the arrest of Probir Sikdar. Several journalists’ and rights organisations, war trial campaign groups and individuals have also condemned the arrest and subsequent remand of the journalist.
Editor of the daily Bangla 71 and online portal Uttoradhikar 71 News, Probir was picked up by Sher-e-Bangla Nagar police on Monday evening. Later he was taken to the DB office and then to Faridpur, where a case was filed by a lawyer for tarnishing the image of LGRD Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain.
A Faridpur court on Tuesday morning granted the police three days to interrogate Probir. But the police produced him before the court on Wednesday saying that they did not need to quiz the accused any more.
Son of a martyred family, Probir sustained severe injuries in a 2001 attack after revealing the complicity in war crimes of two people – business tycoon Moosa bin Shamsher alias Nula Musa and convicted war criminal Abul Kalam Azad alias Bachchu Razakar – in his series of investigative stories named “Sei Razakar” in the daily Janakantha.
In a Facebook post on August 12, Probir said that Mosharraf, Moosa and Bachchu Razakar and their supporters would be responsible should anything happen to him. Probir mentioned that the police had refused to take down a general diary in July.
Recently, the Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Oikyo Parishad alleged that the LGRD minister had grabbed the house of a Hindu family in Faridpur and demolished the temple inside the house. The minister, however, claimed that he had not grabbed the land but bought it at a fair price from the owner.
In the last few weeks, Probir Sikdar also expressed concern over the land grabbing incident through his Facebook profile. He also shared the news story on Moosa several times, demanding he be tried for 1971 war crimes.
Asked if Probir Sikdar was granted bail following the massive criticism his arrest caused or because of intervention by government high-ups, the law minister said: “The judiciary is totally independent. I do not have the authority to answer if anything like this happened. It is a matter of the judiciary.”
