A metropolitan magistrate’s court on Tuesday remanded BNP standing committee member ASM Hannan Shah for two days in police custody for interrogation in a case filed by the police for setting a vehicle on fire on October 26. Metropolitan magistrate Tarek Mainul Islam Bhuiyan passed the order in his chamber after hearing two petitions — one filed by police seeking Hannan Shah in custody and another by the BNP leader seeking bail.
A police subinspector posted at the court, Ziaul Haque, read out the order few minutes after the metropolitan magistrate went to chamber saying, ‘I will pass order after reading out the case documents.’
Lawyer lineal to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led opposition alliance had protested at the order and shouted in the courtroom.
The police arrested Hannan Shah, also a retired brigadier general, on Monday evening, when he came out from a function at Japan embassy in the capital’s Baridhara.
Court officers said that Hannan Shah was also implicated in two other cases in which five BNP senior leaders including Moudud Ahmed and MK Anwar were arrested in early November.
During the hearing, public prosecutor Abdullah Abu argued that Hannan had instigated people to set fire on the vehicle on Pragati Sarani and the police needed to interrogate him to reveal ‘actual fact’ of the incident.
The police filed the case on October 26 after a vehicle was set on fire on the eve of 60-hour general strike enforced by the opposition between in October 27-29.
Defence counsel argued that Hannan was implicated in the case only to harass him politically although he was not named in the first information report of the case that named 19 people.
Hannan told the court, ‘After being arrest, I asked the policemen on which charge I was picked up. The police men replied that they did not know but said that the arrest was ordered by high ups.’
Courtesy of New Age
