Hours after the High Court granted her four-month interim bail in a corruption case, a Comilla court has asked police to show Khaleda Zia arrested in a case filed over the 2015 arson attack on a bus that left eight people dead in Chouddagram upazila.
Senior Judicial Magistrate Court judge Mutayeen Billah on Monday also ordered police to produce the BNP chairperson before his court on March 28, the next hearing date in the case, court police’s Inspector Subrata Banarjee said.
Court sources said the order was passed after Dhaka's Gulshan police station OC Abu Bakar Siddique pleaded to the court to show her arrested in the case.
On February 25, another Comilla court had ordered police to execute a warrant for the arrest of Khaleda and 48 other BNP leaders and activists by April 24 in the case.
After her arrest warrant was sent to Gulshan police station, the OC filed the petition seeking its order to show her arrested.
Khaleda, a three-time former prime minister, was also granted bail by the High Court in Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case on Monday. She was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in this case last month.
Eight people were killed and at least 20 others injured when miscreants hurled a petrol bomb at a bus at Jogmohanpur in Chouddagram during the BNP-led alliance's movement on February 3, 2015.
Police filed the murder case accusing 77, including Khaleda and BNP's five top level leaders, over the incident.
Accepting the charge sheet submitted against 69 people, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Joynab Begum on January 2 last year had issued the arrest warrant for the BNP chief and others as they did not appear before it on the day.
Another case was also filed under the Explosive Substances Act.
In this case, another Comilla court had also ordered the arrest of Khaleda and 45 others October 9 last year.
Monday, March 17, 2025
