The police have sought permission from the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court to show detained economist and former Janata Bank chairman Professor Abul Barkat arrested in a fresh case filed over a murder during the 2024 July uprising.
The application was filed on Sunday in connection with a case lodged with New Market Police Station in Dhaka in August 2024 on charges of murder and offence under the Explosive Substances Act. The court on that day directed jail authorities to produce Barkat before it on June 14 for a hearing on the application.
A jail official at Kashimpur prison said that the court’s production warrant reached the prison authorities on Monday.
The police began the move to show Barkat arrested in a fresh case after jail authorities had sought government clearance regarding Barkat’s release following the Supreme Court’s May 21 order upholding his bail in the only case, relating to loan embezzlement while he was Janata Bank chairman during the Awami League regime.
The Appellate Division’s bail order reached the jail authorities through the Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judges’ Court on Sunday.
The details of the new case over the July mass uprising could not be known.
Professor Barkat’s lawyer, Mustafizur Rahman Khan, told New Age on Monday that family members had waited outside the Kashimpur prison throughout the day in anticipation of his release after the Supreme Court’s order reached the jail authorities.
According to the lawyer, prison officials informed the family that a process was underway to determine whether the economist would be shown arrested in another case before his release could be effected.
Supreme Court Bar Association president AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon, a lawmaker of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party, appeared for Barakat’s bail, as senior counsel, in both the High Court and the Appellate Division.
The former Janata Bank chairman was arrested on July 10, 2025. He sought bail from the Metropolitan Senior Special Judge’s Court on August 20, 2025 but the court rejected his plea.
On May 11, the High Court granted bail to Abul Barkat, 73, and the Appellate Division upheld the bail on May 21.
According to the case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission on February 20, 2025, Prof Abul Barkat and 22 others allegedly embezzled public funds.
