PM remarks row: Court rejects Sifat Abdullah’s bail plea

A court on Monday (September 7) rejected the bail petition of Sifat Abdullah, who came into the spotlight after allegedly making derogatory remarks about the prime minister while raising concerns over an unusually high electricity bill at his home.

The bail plea was rejected after a hearing in a case filed under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Defence lawyer Rashedul Islam Rabbi represented Sifat during the hearing.

After the court rejected the petition, Rabbi said the defence had sought bail for his client and expressed disappointment with the decision.

Rabbi claimed that the case statement did not mention Sifat’s remarks about the electricity and fuel crisis or his alleged comments about the prime minister, which had brought him into public attention. He also claimed that the prosecution did not raise those issues during the hearing.

The defence lawyer further alleged that Sifat had been shown arrested in a case filed on June 4 despite having no connection to it, describing the move as political harassment.

Metropolitan Court Public Prosecutor Advocate Siddiqur Rahman, however, said the case had been filed against Sifat under the Anti-Terrorism Act. He described Sifat as an “accomplice of fascism” and alleged that he had worked as an agenda-driven supporter of the ousted Awami League government and continued such activities after August 5.

Siddiqur said the defence sought bail on Monday, but the court rejected the petition after hearing both sides.

Police arrested Sifat from his residence in Gazipur at around 8:30pm on September 3. Gacha police of Gazipur Metropolitan Police took him to the police station around 9pm.

Sifat, a student of Adamjee Cantonment College in Dhaka, was later shown arrested in an earlier Anti-Terrorism Act case and sent to jail by a court order on September 4.