The High Court today granted bail to seven convicts in a case filed over the attack on motorcade of the then opposition leader and now Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Satkhira in 2002. 

The HC bench of Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam and Justice Md Iqbal Kabir Lytton granted the bail following separate petitions filed by the seven convicts.

The convicts are lawyers Abdus Sattar and Abdus Samad, Golam Rasul, Rakib, Zahirul, Shahabuddin and Monirul Islam, defence lawyer AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon told The Daily Star.

He said the HC granted them bail as there is no specific allegation against them of attacking the motorcade.

Mahbub Uddin Khokon said the HC will deliver order -- on May 30 -- on the bail petitions of 11 other convicts of the case.

The 18 convicts including lawyers Abdus Sattar and Abdus Samad, who have been sentenced to four years to four-and-a-half years' imprisonment by a trial court in Satkhira, recently filed nine separate bail petitions with the HC, Additional Attorney General SM Munir told The Daily Star.

On August 30, 2002, Sheikh Hasina visited the house of a freedom fighter, after his wife was allegedly raped at Hizaldi village of Kolaroa upazila.

While she was returning to Jashore, BNP men kept a bus haphazardly on a road near the office of Kolaroa upazila BNP. As Hasina's motorcade reached the area, BNP men launched an attack on it, according to the case statement.

At least 12 people, including AL leaders and journalists, were injured in the attack, said Satkhira court inspector Amol Kumar Roy.

On September 2 of that year, Kolaroa unit freedom fighters' commander Moslemuddin filed the case against 27 named and 70 to 75 unnamed accused. The accused included several BNP leaders and activists in Satkhira.

On February 4 this year, Satkhira's Chief Judicial Magistrate Court convicted and sentenced fifty people in the case. Among them, 34 convicts, who were present in the courtroom, were sent to jail the same day. The others are on the run.