A Dhaka court yesterday granted bail to two accused men in the murder case filed over the Rana Plaza collapse that killed at least 1,136 people in April 2013.
Dhaka Senior Judicial Magistrate Shahajadi Tahmida passed the order after Shahidul Islam and Md Yusuf Ali, two factory inspectors of the Labour Ministry, surrendered before the court and their counsel Sheikh Baharul Islam filed the bail petition.
However, public prosecutors Abdul Mannan Khan and Anwarul Kabir Babul, and Court Inspector Asaduzzman opposed the bail petition mentioning that the two men were charge-sheeted accused in the case.
Seeking order to send them to jail, they also told the court that none of the accused had earlier received bail from the lower court. They also mentioned that on February 8, the same court sent a Rajuk building inspector Awaled Hossain to jail after his surrender in the same case.
After hearing both sides, the court granted the bail to the two men on Tk10,000 bonds.
After the order, public prosecutor Babul said: “This is the first time that any accused got bail from the lower court in the sensational murder case.”
On December 21, 2015, a Dhaka court took into cognisance the charge sheet in the murder case that charged Rana Plaza owner Sohel Rana and 40 others. On June 1, 2015, over two years after the tragedy, the CID pressed murder charges against 41 people, including Rana Plaza owner Sohel Rana, in two cases.
The accused include Rana’s parents, owners of four factories, the then mayor of Savar municipality and 14 government officials.
Of the 41 accused, Sohel Rana among nine accused are now in jail and 19 accused are on bail while the remaining 15 accused are still on the run. CID also submitted another charge sheet against 18 people on charges of violating building codes in constructing the Rana plaza in Savar, on the outskirts of the capital.
