Bangladesh Bar Council, a statutory body regulating the lawyers, on Wednesday strongly condemned the arrest of its vice-chairman Khandker Mahbub Hossain and demanded his immediate unconditional release. Addressing a press conference, Bar Council executive committee chairman AJ Mohammad Ali, said all the bar associations across the country will hold protest meeting everyday until Khandker Mahbub is released. “The arrest of Khandker Mahbub amounts to an ill-effort to trample the rule of law,” said Mohammad Ali, also adviser to the BNP chairperson. Mohammad Ali, also the incumbent SCBA president, further said: “The government is apparently moving to establish one-party rule blocking the path of democracy.” On Tuesday, Bar Council vice-chairman and BNP chairperson’s adviser Khandker Mahbub Hossain was picked up by plainclothes police after he had left the Jatiya Press Club premises where he addressed a discussion meeting on the January 5 parliamentary polls. Bar Council office bearers Mohammad Sanaullah Mia and Golam Mostafa Khan, and the wife of Khandker Mahbub, Adv Farhat Hossain, were, among others, present. – UNB
