The Supreme Court on Monday (June 21) stayed the High Court orders that granted bail to seven convicts in a case filed over the attack on motorcade of the then opposition leader and current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Satkhira in 2002.

A bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain issued the order.

In response to separate bail petitions filed by the seven convicts, the HC on May 25 granted them bail in the case.

Later, Chamber judge of the Appellate Division of the SC Justice Hasan Foez Siddique stayed the HC orders.

The convicts are lawyers Abdus Sattar and Abdus Samad, Golan Rasul, Rakib, Zahirul, Shahabuddin and Monirul Islam.

On August 30, 2002, then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina, now the prime minister, visited the house of a freedom fighter, after his wife was allegedly raped, in Hizaldi village of Kolaroa upazila.

While she was returning to Jashore, BNP men kept a bus haphazardly on a road near the office of Kolaroa upazila BNP. As Hasina's motorcade reached the area, BNP men launched an attack on it, according to the case statement.

At least 12 people, including AL leaders and journalists, were injured in the attack

On February 4 this year, Satkhira's Chief Judicial Magistrate Court convicted and sentenced fifty people in the case. Among them, 34 convicts, who were present in the courtroom, were sent to jail the same day. The others are on the run.

BDST: 1515 HRS, JUN 21, 2021
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