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contact for a while until she suddenly called him a day before and said she would come over for a visit.

“In the evening [Monday], she [Shirin] arrived with her husband and a small piece of luggage. I was happy, thinking she would stay with us for a couple of days. We had dinner and were chatting afterwards,” he said.

Around midnight, members of the Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police arrived at Arif’s apartment on Road 8/A.

From the ground floor, they contacted him through the intercom, identified themselves, and said they had information that the former speaker was at his residence and that they wanted to conduct a search.

“I did not lie. I informed my cousin [Shirin] about the matter and allowed the law enforcers to enter the apartment. They told her that they had been ordered to take her with them. She complied,” Arif said.

Arif further said that when Shirin called to say she was coming over, he assumed the cases against her had been resolved, since the government had earlier stated she was in custody.

After the 2024 July uprising, many Awami League leaders took refuge in the cantonment. On May 22 last year, the Inter‑Services Public Relations (ISPR) released a list of those who had sought shelter, which included Shirin’s name.

Shirin resigned from her post of Jatiya Sangsad speaker on September 2, 2024 -- 27 days after Sheikh Hasina’s government fell.

Since then, the 60-year-old former Jatiya Sangsad speaker had been in hiding at various locations, a DB source told Prothom Alo.

Following the 2008 election, Abdul Hamid was elected speaker when the Awami League came to power. After he became president, Shirin was elected speaker on April 30, 2013, and had held the post since then.

NO BAIL, NO REMAND

Around 1:50pm yesterday, a white microbus carrying the ex-speaker arrived at the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s (CMM) Court in Dhaka. She was then kept inside the CMM Court lockup for about 75 minutes.

At 3:13pm, Shirin was brought to the packed courtroom, and she proceeded to stand in a corner of the dock.

Minutes later, Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Jewel Rana took his seat.

After the court allowed the case investigating officer DB inspector Mohsin Uddin to speak, he began his submission in the case filed over the shooting of one Mohammad Ashraful in Dhaka’s Lalbagh area during the quota reform protests on July 18, 2024.

On May 25 last year, the victim, Ashraful, filed a case with the court accusing deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina and 129 others. The officer-in-charge of Lalbagh Police Station later recorded it as a First Information Report (FIR) on July 17 the same year following a court directive.

Dhaka Metropolitan Public Prosecutor Omar Faruq Faruqi argued in favour of granting investigators remand to interrogate the accused, describing Shirin as an “associate of the fascist government”.

At 3:22pm, defence lawyer Abul Hasanat Imrul Qausar opposed the prosecution’s submissions and explained why she should not be placed on remand.

“My client was only the person who resigned. No specific evidence has been found against her,” he told the court.

He asked, “Did she shoot the victim? She was a neutral person.”

The defence also mentioned Shirin’s illness. “She has been very sick. As she remained in hiding for a long time, she fell ill,” Hasanat said.

During the hearing, the former speaker remained mostly silent inside the dock.

After hearing both sides, the magistrate sent her to jail, rejecting both the two-day remand prayer and the bail petition.

Around 3:35pm, she was taken back to the court’s lockup amid a chaotic situation inside the courtroom. During the rush and commotion, she fell on a staircase of the court building, and female police officers helped her up.

Meanwhile, a group of defence lawyers chanted “Joy Bangla” slogan on the court premises, prompting a scuffle to break out when pro-BNP lawyers tried to stop them.