Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir in a police car on 29 October, 2023
Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir in a police car on 29 October, 2023

Mirza Fakhrul sent to jail

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has been sent to jail.

A court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) in Dhaka pronounced the order on Sunday.

Earlier in the day, police produced the senior BNP leader before the court showing him arrested in a case filed at Ramna police station.

He was shown arrested over nine hours after detention by a team of police from his residence in Gulshan in the capital.

His lawyers pleaded for his bail while police pleaded to send him to jail. Upon hearing, the court sent Mirza Fakhrul to jail.

The police took him the the court from the Detective Branch (DB) office at 8:10 pm.

Jainul Abedin, lawyer of the BNP leader, told Prothom Alo that Mirza Fakhrul Islam has been shown arrested in a case filed with the Ramna police station.

The police produced him before the court with a plea to imprison him, while a petition was filed seeking his bail.

Earlier, the police showed senior BNP leader arrested over nine hours after detaining him from his Gulshan residence in the capital.

Asked about the decision of police about Mirza Fakhrul, DMP commissioner Habibur Rahman told Prothom Alo that the BNP leader has been shown arrested in the case filed with Paltan police station over death of a police member and torching vehicles.

Regarding the arrest, his wife Rahat Ara Begum told journalists that police members talked with Fakhrul and his family members. The law enforcers then took away footage of CCTV cameras and the hard disk. Policemen again came just 10 minutes later.

BNP held a grand rally in the capital’s Naya Paltan on Saturday, but party leaders and activists engaged in clashes with police in Kakrail ahead of the rally, and that spread out to Bijoynagr and Shantinagr areas. At one point, the rally was foiled around 3:00 pm.

The BNP-police clashes left one policeman and a Jubo Dal leader dead, as well as 41 members of police and 25 members of Ansar, 20 journalists injured. BNP claimed more than 1,000 party leaders and activists sustained injuries during the clashes.