No bail for mother sent to jail with three children

A Dhaka court has rejected the bail petition of Lucky Akter, the mother who was sent to jail along with her three young children after being arrested with 30 kg of cannabis.

Metropolitan Magistrate Didarul Alam passed the order on Thursday, April 30, after a hearing.

Lucky was arrested on Tuesday by the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of police at the airport area while arriving from Brahmanbaria with 30 kg of cannabis . She was accompanied by her four children, two sons aged 17 and 5, and two daughters aged 6 and 1.

On Wednesday, Metropolitan Magistrate Kamal Uddin ordered Lucky to be sent to Kashimpur Central Jail. As there was no one to care for her three younger children, the 6-year-old daughter, the 5-year-old son, and the 1-year-old daughter, the court allowed them to remain with their mother in custody . Her 17-year-old eldest son was sent to the Juvenile Development Centre in Tongi.

Prosecution Police Sub-Inspector Abu Bakr Bhuiyan confirmed the bail rejection.

A lawyer had collected Lucky's signature on a power of attorney on Wednesday and filed the bail petition on Thursday on humanitarian grounds.

Outside the courtroom earlier, a tearful Lucky told reporters that she was driven to the drug trade by extreme poverty and domestic abuse. "No one comes into this line of work by choice," she said, pointing to a scar on her forehead she claimed was from a recent beating by her husband .

"My husband doesn't provide for us. He has two wives and often hits me. I couldn't even give my children one meal a day," she said, adding that she had no relatives to leave her children with as her mother lives in Chattogram and her brother is abroad.