Bangladesh's interim government is preparing to proclaim an ordinance to protect the 2024 "July warriors" from prosecution, media reports said on Tuesday.

These activists were involved in violent street protests that toppled then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government.

The mass circulation Prothom Alo and Ittefaq newspapers reported that initiatives are underway to enact the ordinance, which would provide legal protection for the July warriors.

The move follows a meeting chaired by Home Adviser Lt. Gen. (retd.) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury on Monday.

Officials discussed modelling the ordinance on a law enacted by the post-independence Awami League government for the freedom fighters of the 1971 Liberation War.

Two recent incidents are said to have prompted the government’s initiative. On 25 December, law enforcement arrested July warrior Tahrima Jannat Surovi on charges of extortion and blackmail.

She was later granted bail by a local court in Gazipur on the outskirts of Dhaka. In another case, police in northeastern Habiganj arrested Mahdi Hassan on Saturday after he, along with a crowd, went to a local police station and threatened the officer in charge.

A Habiganj court freed him on bail the following day.

Following the arrests, activists of the Students against Discrimination (SAD), the group that spearheaded the July Uprising and from which the National Citizen Party later emerged, staged massive protests in Dhaka, Habiganj, and other locations.

They demanded the unconditional release of the arrested leaders and legal protection for the July warriors under a special measure, prompting authorities to take steps to promulgate the ordinance.