A Dhaka court Sunday set August 13 for hearing of petition against the bail rejection order of ruling party lawmaker Golam Maula Rony which will apparently keep him in jail till the Eid-ul-Fitr.
Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions’ Judge Md Zahurul Haque fixed the date after Rony's counsel Kabir Hossain filed the petition called “criminal miscellaneous bail petition.”
Kabir Hossain, however, later told the Dhaka Tribune he would file another petition on July 30 with the court to reschedule the hearing before Eid.
Rony is now in a Kashimpur jail and enjoying division there as an MP.
Earlier on July 25, Judge SM Ashiqur Rahman of the Dhaka’s Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court (CMM) sent him to jail rejecting a bail plea in an attempt-to-murder case filed in connection with assaulting two journalists of Independent Television at his office on July 20.
Rony was arrested on July 24 in Badda, hours after the CMM court issued an arrest warrant against him.
Yunus Ali, assistant manager of the channel, filed the case for “attempted murder, vandalism and assault” with Shahbagh police station against the lawmaker and 20-25 unnamed people on July 21.
On same day Rony surrendered before the CMM court through his counsel Kabir Hossain, and sought bail. Metropolitan magistrate Rezaul Karim granted him ad-interim bail on a Tk5,000 bound till August 21.
Yunus filed a general diary on the next day with the same police station alleging Rony and his people were threatening him, and filed a bail cancellation petition citing possible attack on the TV authorities.
The CMM court later cancelled the bail and issued the arrest warrant against the MP.
The Awami League lawmaker from Patuakhali allegedly assaulted the journalists – reporter Imitaz Sony and camera person Muhsin Mukul – at his Meherba Plaza office in the capital’s Topkhana Road area. Sony and Mukul were working on a weekly crime show called “Talash.”
The victims claimed that Rony had physically assaulted them with the help of his associates as they went to his office on a tip that a Tk20m-bribe was going to change hands there. The two broadcast journalists were allegedly kept confined inside Rony’s office for nearly two hours before members of law enforcement agencies and journalist leaders rescued them.
The journalists are currently on bail in the counter-case filed by Rony against Independent TV owner Salman F Rahman and others on charge of attempting to kill him.
