B'desh interim govt plans ordinance to protect 'July warriors' from prosecution

Dhaka, Jan 6 (PTI) Bangladesh's interim government plans to proclaim an ordinance to protect from prosecution the 2024 "July warriors" whose violent street protests toppled then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League regime, media reports said on Tuesday.

The mass circulation Prothom Alo and Ittefaq newspapers said that initiatives were underway to proclaim the ordinance to protect the “July warriors” from the law.

According to reports, a meeting chaired by Home Adviser Lt. Gen. (retd.) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury on Monday decided to proclaim the instance of one such law enacted by the post-independence Awami League government for the freedom fighters of the 1971 Liberation War.

Citing unnamed "sources", the reports said that two recent incidents prompted the government to take the initiative.

In the first incident, law enforcement forces arrested "July warrior" Tahrima Jannat Surovi on charges of extortion and blackmail on December 25. She was later granted bail by a local court in Gazipur on the outskirts of the capital.

In the second incident, police in northeastern Habiganj arrested Mahdi Hassan on Saturday, a day after he, along with a crowd, went to a local police station and threatened the officer in charge (OC). A Habiganj court freed him on bail the next day.

After the arrest of the two uprising leaders, activists of the Students against Discrimination (SAD), who spearheaded the July Uprising, a large offshoot of which later emerged as the National Citizen Party CP), staged massive protests in Dhaka, Habiganj and elsewhere.

They demanded the unconditional release of arrested leaders and future protection for the July Warriors from justice under a special legal measure, prompting authorities to take initiatives to promulgate the ordinance. PTI AR ZH ZH