Hasina challenges validity of placing extortion case under EPR

---

Detained Awami League (AL) President and former premier Sheikh Hasina Sunday filed a writ petition challenging the validity of the government sanction invoking an extortion case against her under the Emergency Powers Rules (EPR), reports UNB.
The EPR bars the accused from seeking bail until the case is resolved.
Barrister Shafique Ahmed, a counsel for Hasina, said, the petition is likely to be heard in a day or two by a High Court Division Bench comprising Justice Shah Abu Nayeem Mominur Rahman and Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury.
On September 2, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed a case against the ex-prime minister and six others with Tejgaon police station, complaining that the accused, 'through connivance and use of influence', helped a foreign company and its local partners to win a deal for setting up three barge-mounted power plants.
A few days before and after the deal, three companies paid Tk 30 million in kickbacks, which was spent for buying a house with some land in Dhanmondi area for Bangabandhu Memorial Trust, said the case statement.
The co-accused are former energy secretary Toufique Elahi Chowdhury, former PDB chairman Noor Uddin Mahmud Kamal, Summit Group Managing Director Aziz Khan and Director Farid Khan, and United Group Chairman Hassan Mahmud Raja and Director Abul Kalam Azad.
Meanwhile, AL Acting President Zillur Rahman, while talking to the reporters at his Gulshan residence Sunday said, "We will participate at the national election under party chief Sheikh Hasina's leadership after freeing her from jail."
He termed the cases that were filed against Hasina as false and fabricated, demanded their withdrawal, and also immediate release of the detained party chief.
Recalling the incidents of October 28 of last year, Zillur demanded to the Caretaker Government to take action against Jamaat-Shibir and their patrons who were responsible for the incident.
He said, AL-led 14-party combine had organised a blockade on that day marking the end of the misrule of the BNP-led four-party alliance.
He claimed that Jamaat-Shibir had launched virulent attacks on the activists of 14-party alliance, and rained bullets on the demonstrators, killing a cadre of Workers Party at Paltan.
He alleged that BNP-Jamaat alliance, under a blueprint of election engineering, had appointed President Dr Iajuddin Ahmed as the chief adviser of the caretaker government, which was opposed by the people.
On October 28 last year, at least 12 people were killed, and about 2,000 wounded, as the activists of the outgoing BNP-led coalition government and AL-led 14-party opposition combine engaged themselves in clashes that resulted an escalation of violence across the country.