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5 BNP Leaders Remanded

Brow-raising order

Opposition plans to call hartal for 3 days from Tuesday

SHAKHAWAT LITON andCHAITANYA CHANDRA HALDER
A Dhaka court yesterday placed five arrested BNP leaders, three of them party's policymakers, on an eight-day remand in two cases, allowing the police to quiz them extensively about plans to "carry out subversive activities and kill people".
According to police's submission, the remand was necessary' also to know about the sources of the crude bombs being used during shutdowns.
In protest at the remand order, the BNP-led 18-party alliance is planning a three-day countrywide hartal from Tuesday, a top leader of the alliance told The Daily Star last night.
"The decision will be finalised on Saturday, at a meeting of the top
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alliance leaders at BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia's Gulshan office. It will be made public after the alliance's secretary-level meeting the following day," said the leader wishing anonymity-
The remanded leaders are BNP standing committee members Moudud Ahmed, 73, MK Anwar, 81, and Rafiqul Islam Miah, 71, and BNP chief Khaleda Zia's adviser Abdul Awal Mintoo, 65, and her special assistant Shimul Biswas, 56.
Of them, Moudud and Anwar are members of the current parliament and were influential ministers of the last BNP-led government, while Mintoo is a top businessman and a former president of the apex trade body FBCCI.
The cases against the BNP leaders were filed in September and November on charges of "attempted murder of cops" and "creating violence" in the capital during the party's programmes.
After their detention a week ago, the leaders were shown arrested in both the cases and produced before a magistrate's court on Saturday with 10 days' remand prayer in each case.
The court did not dispose of the remand petitions that day and sent the detainees to jail.
Metropolitan Magistrate of Dhaka Rezaul Karim yesterday granted the remand prayer, rejecting the bail petitions.
During the hearing, public prosecutors argued that the opposition leaders had been provoking violence and killing innocent people to oust the government.
Counsels for the BNP leaders, however, said
the arrests had been made to harass their clients politically and that they all were senior citizens and in no way they could be involved in vandalism and instigating killings.
Meanwhile, additional police force had to be deployed on the court premises as proopposition lawyers brought out a procession protesting the remand order. They also blasted the magistrate for the decision.
The BNP leaders' arrests are seen by many as the government strategy to thwart the antigovernment movement.
Law enforcers detained them hours after the BNP-led combine announced on Friday afternoon a 72-hour nationwide hartal from the following Sunday.
This, however, could not rein in the opposition; rather, the hartal was extended by 12 more hours protesting the arrests.
The main opposition BNP yesterday strongly denounced the remand order and demanded immediate release of its leaders.
"The government used the court to place our leaders on remand," alleged BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi at an emergency press briefing.
This was a demonstration of the government's "vindictive and dirty game", he added.
This is not the first time the government had detained senior opposition leaders in cases filed for violence during street agitation.
Since 2012, dozens of BNP senior leaders have been detained and put behind bars for months. They all later came out on bail.
Like the previous cases against the opposition leaders, the latest two are also interesting in nature.
According to the remand prayer in the case filed on November 6, opposition activists as per plans of the detained BNP leaders blocked a road at Kamalapur Bazar and hurled several crude bombs at law enforcers on the hartal day on Novembers.
As per the case filed on September 24, BNP activists that day brought out a procession protesting submission of a charge-sheet against four leaders of pro-BNP student body Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal in connection with a case for hurling crude bombs at the house of the information minister.
The case statement also added that under the instructions of the detained BNP leaders, the partymen had brought out procession and vandalised and torched a car, and blasted several crude bombs in front of Motijheel Ideal School and Gollege.
2 MORE PRO-BNP LEADERS HELD
Detectives yesterday detained two senior leaders of BNP's voluntary wing Jatiyatabadi Swechchhasebak Dal in the capital.
However, the reason behind the arrests of JSD secretary general Sharafat Ali Sapu and its organising secretary Shariful Bari Babu was not made public immediately.
Abu Yusuf, an assistant commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, confirmed the arrests.
Law enforcers picked up Sapu, also a cousin of Zubaida Khan Rahman, wife of BNP Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman, and Babu from Bangla Motor area around 7:00pm.
Sources said the two were on their way to the Jatiya Press Club to attend a programme of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia.