BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir was freed on bail from prison this evening, hours after a Dhaka court sent him to prison in two arson cases.

He got out of the Dhaka Central Jail around 6:00pm, Sayrul Kabir Khan, a media wing staff of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, told The Daily Star.

Fakhrul secured bail in the two arson cases this afternoon, around four hours after Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Golam Nabi sent him to prison in the same cases.

Fakhrul’s lawyer moved a reconsideration petition with the court saying that the BNP leader fell sick after imprisonment.

The incident came after Fakhrul started the day in a good mood as he became the full functioning secretary general of BNP after serving as acting secretary general for almost six years.

The veteran BNP leader appeared before a trial court this morning, upon directives from the Supreme Court, to seek bail in the two cases filed with Paltan Police Station.

Magistrate Nabi denied him bail.

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On February 29, the SC extended Fakhrul’s bail for 15 more days in these two cases. He was asked to surrender before trial court within the time frame.

Before that, the High Court on November 24 last year granted Fakhrul bail for three months in connection with the cases filed over last year’s political violence.

Mirza Fakhrul, now 67 years of age and a politician since his student life, has been BNP’s acting secretary general since the passing away of Khandaker Delwar Hossain in 2011.

Fakhrul had to serve in jail during the last two terms of the Awami League government. Near about 70 lawsuits have been filed against him alone in recent times.