A total of 142 prisoners were released from Sylhet central jail on Sunday night and Monday morning.
As per a directive issued by the Prime Minister recently the prisoners were released on humanitarian grounds.
The prisoners were serving jail-time from six-months to a maximum of two years.
Sylhet Central Jail Senior Superintendent Abdul Jalil said: “For the first time in the history of the country, 142 inmates were released within 24 hours. On Sunday evening, 73 prisoners, and on Monday morning 69 prisoners were released.
“On Sunday, 106 people were granted bail from different courts of Sylhet and 36 people were exempted from trial.”
The list of convicts, who confessed to their offences to court, was shortlisted and released from prison.
The convicts were accused of suspected involvement in theft, burglary, mugging, prostitution and various minor offences, Abdul said.
They were sentenced by different courts, including the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court and the district session judge’s court.
Earlier, Home Ministry Secretary (Protection and Service) Farid Uddin Ahmed Chowdhury and Law Ministry Secretary Abu Saleh Shiekh Md Zahirul Haque visited the central jail as a prior step to select the inmates to be released, he said.
Superintendent Abdul Jalil also said that this is the first time in Bangladesh an initiative was taken to free a large number of prisoners at once, and this program started from Sylhet. Accordingly more prisoners will be released in phases, he added.
