Six organizers of the quota movement, who had been in the Dhaka Metropolitan Police`s Detective Branch (DB) custody for the past week, were released around on Thursday noon.
They were released within a day after former DB chief Harun or Rashid was transferred, under whose command they were detained.
These six were key leaders of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, which spearheaded the job quota protests in 2024. The movement later turned violent, resulting in the deaths of at least 147 people according to government figures.
Badrul Islam, father of Nahid Islam, one of the organizers, confirmed their release, stating that his son and the other five students were freed around 1:30pm.
He added, "I received a call from the DB office early this morning asking me to come and pick up my son."
Our correspondent witnessed the students leaving the DB office on Minto Road in a black microbus.
The organizers—Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud, Abu Baker Majumder, Hasnat Abdullah, Sarjis Alam, and Nusrat Tabassum—were detained between Friday and Sunday.
The DB had claimed their detention was for "security reasons."
