Blogger Asif Mohiuddin gets bail

A Dhaka court has granted bail to blogger Asif Mohiuddin who was detained in April this year in connection with a case filed against him for violating information, communication and technology laws.

Judge Zahurul Haque of the Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court passed the order on Thursday after Asif’s lawyer submitted a bail petition.

Asif’s counsel Barrister Jyotirmoy Barua told bdnews24.com that the court granted bail to Asif on health ground as he fell seriously ill in the jail after he was remanded in police custody twice.

Earlier on June 2, the same court granted bail to three other bloggers Mashiur Rahman Biplob, Russel Pervez and Subrata Adhikari Shuvo in a non-First Information Report (FIR) case filed under the Section 57(2) of Information Communication Technology Act 2006.

But the court had rejected Asif’s bail plea that day.

The charges against the accused bloggers were scheduled to be framed on Thursday.

However, the court deferred the date to Aug 25 as the bloggers submitted separate time petitions. Their counsels also filed petitions seeking acquittal of their clients from the charges. The court will hear the petitions on Aug 25.

A team of Detective Branch of police arrested Asif, an ex-student of a private university, on Apr 3, two days after the three bloggers were detained for making “derogatory comments about Islam and Prophet Muhammad ” on social media.

The police on Apr 17 filed two separate non-FIR cases – one against Asif and the other against three other bloggers under Section 57(2) of Information Communication Technology Act 2006.

The bloggers’ arrest drew huge criticism from people across the board. The Islamist groups launched a campaign after the arrest saying that the “atheist bloggers” were involved in the Shahbagh movement for death penalty for war criminals.

Asif was seriously stabbed by a group of unknown assailants in front of his office in the city’s Uttara area on Jan 14. He underwent treatment for some days at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

Of the three other bloggers, Subrata Adhikari Shuvo is a master's student of the Bangla department at Dhaka University while Mashiur Rahman Biplob and Russel Pervez are the former students of the same university.