A Dhaka court on Monday issued arrest warrant against Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal President Sultan Salahuddin Tuku, Jubo Dal President Moazzem Hossain Alal and 15 others of BNP, Jamaat-e-Islami and their front organisations in connection with December 18 violence in Dhaka.
Others who are facing the warrant of arrest include Jubo Dal General Secretary (GS) Saiful Alam Nirob, JCD GS Amirul Islam Alim, Swechchhasebak Dal President Habib-un-Nabi Khan Sohel and GS Sarafat Ali Safu.
Issuing the order, Metropolitan Magistrate Mostafa Shahriar Khan directed the officer-in-charge (OC) of Paltan Police Station to arrest the 17 in a month.
It also ordered the OC to confiscate their movable properties during the period.
On December 18, several homemade bombs went off in the capital's downtown as hundreds of BNP-Jamaat activists clashed with police and vandalised and torched around a dozen vehicles. A 24-year-old man, Arifuzzaman Arif, was killed when a bomb exploded in Motijheel area.
Police later filed 18 cases against around 7,000 leaders and activists of the opposition parties for going on the rampage. They detained 289 activists of BNP and Jamaat and their front organisations in the capital and interrogated 120 of them for six days in connection with the cases.
In one case filed with Paltan Police Station, 58 persons were accused for damaging vehicles, halting traffic, causing anarchy and preventing police from discharging their duties at Paltan, Motijheel and Shahbagh areas on the day.
Muktar Hossain, a sub-inspector of Paltan Police Station and investigation officer of the case, pressed charges against all the 58 accused.
He mentioned 17 of the accused including Alal, Tuku and Sohel as fugitives though several of them obtained ad-interim bail from the High Court. The remaining 44 who were arrested earlier are now in jail custody.
