A Dhaka court yesterday granted bail to four volunteer childcare workers, whose arrest on human trafficking allegations triggered public outrage on social media.
Metropolitan Magistrate Muhammad Yousuf Hossain passed the order after Sub-Inspector Ziarot Hossain, also the investigating officer of the case, submitted a probe report on the Odommo Bangladesh Foundation volunteers with Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court.
“No evidence on suspicion of human trafficking has been found during investigation in the case. So they may be acquitted from the allegation in the case,” the IO said in the report.
“The charges brought against them were not proved authentic,” the probe report read.
The court granted the defendants bail after defence counsel Barrister Bibhuti Tarafdar filed a bail petition on behalf of the four – Arifur Rahman, Jakia Sultana, Hasibul Hasan Sobuj and Firoz Alam Khan Shuva.
They are all volunteers of Mojar School, a school for homeless children run by Odommo.
The four were detained on September 12, when Rampura police raided a Banasree flat rented by Odommo and found 10 children, aged between nine and 14.
The police suspected that the children were kept for human trafficking purposes.
On September 12, a case was filed by one Monir Hossain with Rampura police station.
The following day, Metropolitan Magistrate Md Jakir Hossain Tipu granted police two days to question them in their custody.
On the same day, Magistrate Md Toshruzzaman sent nine of the children to the safe custody of Gazipur Child Development Centre while another child was handed over to his father.
