Narayanganj teacher files bail petition

Schoolteacher Shyamal Kanti Bhakta filed a bail petition with the Narayanganj Sessions Judge's Court yesterday, a day after he landed in jail in a bribery case.

His lawyer Shakhawat Hossain Khan said Judge Syed Enayet Hossain fixed May 31 for hearing the bail prayer.

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“We hope to get justice from the court as the case is motivated and baseless,” he told The Daily Star.

Shyamal, headmaster of Piyar Sattar Latif High School in Bandar area of Narayanganj, was forced to do squats holding ears in presence of local Jatiya Party lawmaker AKM Salim Osman on May 13 last year over allegation that the headmaster made derogatory comments about religion while meting out corporal punishment to a student.

According to the lawyer, the bribery case was filed under four sections of different laws. The offences under two sections are bailable and the offences under two others are non-bailable.

Shakhawat said, “Although the offences under two sections are non-bailable, the accused are granted bail by courts in around 90 percent cases”.

He termed the bribery allegation against the headmaster imaginary. He hoped the Narayanganj court would grant bail to his client considering the merit of the case and the ailing health of the accused.

Shyamal on Wednesday surrendered before another Narayanganj court and sought bail in the case filed by Morsheda Begum, an English teacher at the same school, on July 14 last year.

The court rejected the bail prayer and sent him to jail.

Earlier, the court had issued an arrest warrant for the headmaster after taking the bribery charges into cognisance.

According to the case statement, the teacher took Tk 1.35 lakh in bribe from Morsheda, making a false promise of having her included in the monthly pay order (MPO) system.

A few days after the May 13 incident last year, the school's managing committee forced Shyamal to step down over the allegation that he had hurt “religious sentiments” of the Muslims.

But an education ministry probe found the allegation to be false and Shyamal was reinstated as headmaster. He underwent treatment in the capital and joined duty on July 10. The school managing committee was dissolved subsequently.

Interestingly, just four days after his return to work, three complaints were filed against him with the Narayanganj Judicial Magistrate's court.

One Rina Begum of Kallyandi area in Bandar filed a case against the headmaster for allegedly torturing her son Rifat, a student of the school, on May 8 and May 13 while Samsul Haque Samsu lodged another case for allegedly hurting “religious sentiments” of the Muslims.

The third complaint was filed by Morsheda for allegedly taking bribe from her.

The Narayanganj court scrapped the first two cases on July 14 last year as an investigation into the same incidents was underway following a High Court order.

However, the court ordered police to investigate the bribery charges.

Meanwhile, Rana Dasgupta, general secretary of Bangladesh Hindu-Bouddha-Christian Oikya Parishad, yesterday said the bribery case was aimed at “harassing the headmaster”, reports our Narayanganj correspondent.