No remand, no bail for Mahmudur

A Dhaka court yesterday sent back Mahmudur Rahman, acting editor of Bangla daily Amar Desh, to jail after rejecting both the petitions for bail and remand in a case filed in connection with bomb blast.

But the court allowed the police to interrogate Mahmudur at the jail gate within five workdays. 

Metropolitan Magistrate Golam Nabi passed the order after Sub-Inspector of Shahbagh Police Station Harun-Or-Rashid, also investigation officer of the case, produced Mahmudur before it with a seven-day remand prayer.

On February 15, Mahmudur was shown arrested in the blast case a day after the Supreme Court upheld a High Court bail granted to him in a sedition case.

The former energy adviser to a BNP government was expecting to be released from jail as he secured bail in all 74 criminal cases filed against him with police stations and courts across the country since December 2012.

In the petition, police also sought a seven-day remand for Mahmudur to quiz him in connection with the blast case although he was not named in the first information report of the case.

The case was lodged on January 28, 2013, with Shahbagh Police Station against 44 leaders and activists of the BNP-led 20-party alliance for their alleged involvement in exploding crude bombs in front of Dhaka University central playground.     

On April 11, 2013, Mahmudur was picked up from his newspaper office in the capital's Karwan Bazar.

The newspaper stopped printing in mid-April that year.