Families asked to meet Hannan, Bipul at jail

Family members of Harkat-ul-Jihad (HujiB) Chief Mufti Abdul Hannan and his associate Sharif Shahedul alias Bipul have been asked to meet them at jail. The jail authorities on Tuesday sent separate letters to the families of Mufti Hannan and Bipul, asking them to meet their respective family members inside the jail, said Jail Super of Kashimpur Central Jail Mizanur Rahman as quoted by UNB. However, no specific date was mentioned for the meetings in the letters. Jail authorities have completed all necessary preparations to execute the two HujiB men, as their mercy petitions were rejected by President Abdul Hamid on Sunday. Stringent security measures were in place in and around the jail ahead of the executions, said jail sources. Meanwhile, the rejected mercy petition of another death-row convict, Delwar alias Ripon, reached Sylhet Central Jail on Tuesday morning. Mufti Hannan and Bipul have been kept at Kashimpur Central Jail while Ripon is in Sylhet Central Jail. Earlier, on March, 27, the three HujiB men filed separate petitions seeking presidential clemency. In 2004, then British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury came under a grenade attack while coming out of Hazrat Shahjalal's shrine in his hometown Sylhet. The envoy and 40 employees of Sylhet district administration were injured in the attack. On December 7, 2016, an SC bench, headed by Chief Justice SK Sinha, upheld the death penalty for the three in the case regarding the attack, rejecting appeals filed by the HujiB men challenging the High Court verdict that had upheld their death sentence awarded by the tribunal. On March 19, 2017, the Appellate Division upheld the death sentence of Mufti Hannan, Delwar Alias Ripon, and Sharif Shahedul Alam alias Bipul after hearing the review petitions filed by the three death-row convicts. It released the full text of its verdict on March 21.