The High Court on Wednesday granted regular bail to main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and its standing committee member Mirza Abbas, who were released from jail on January 9 after the Appellate Division upheld their ad-interim bail.

The High Court bench of Md Salim and Justice Md Riaz Uddin Khan on January 4 granted six-month bail to Fakhrul, 74, and Abbas, 71, on humanitarian grounds as they had been suffering from various old-age complications.

The court also asked the government to explain in four weeks why the two senior leaders should not be granted bail.

The same bench regularised their bail after disposing of their bail petition on Wednesday.

Detective Branch picked up Fakhrul and Abbas from their homes in separate raids in the capital in the early hours of December 9, 2022 stating that they would be interrogated in custody.

After their arrests, they were shown arrested in a case involving a clash between police and party activists in Nayapaltan in the capital, on December 7, 2022. The December 7 clash left one BNP activist dead and scores injured.

The arrest occurred a day before the BNP’s Dhaka divisional mass rally on December 10 in protest of rising commodity prices and the demand of the unconditional release of party chairperson Khaleda Zia, among others.

Fakhrul and Abbas were implicated in the case filed by the police against 476 leaders and activists of the party.

Over 200 leaders of the party were arrested in the case.

Fakhrul and Abbas were denied division facilities in Dhaka Central Jail even though they were former ministers.