3 lawyers held for funding militant group remanded

A Bashkhali court placed the three arrested lawyers in a four-day remand each at 7:00pm today.  

Earlier today Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) claimed their arrest from Dhaka for their alleged funding of a militant group.

The Rab-7 team picked them up from a house at Dhanmondi area in Dhaka at 11:00pm last night, Col Miftah, commanding officer of Rab-7 in Chittagong, said today.

“They were arrested for funding of a militant outfit Shaheed Hamja Brigade,” he said.

The arrestees are identified as Supreme Court lawyers Barrister Shakila Farjana, 39, and Advocate Hasanuzzaman Liton, 30, and Judge Court lawyer Advocate Mahfuz Chowdhury Bapon, 25, the Rab officer told our Chittagong correspondent.

Only Shakila Farzana is a listed lawyer of Supreme Court Bar Association, Superintendent of SCBA Nimesh Chandra Das told The Daily Star.

The three were shown arrested in a case filed with Bashkhali Police Station for allegedly funding a Chittagong based militant outfit, before they were produced before the Senior Judicial Magistrate Court of Sajjad Hossain.

SCBA president Khandker Mahbub Hossain and general secretary AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon denounced the arrest of Shakila in a joint statement and demanded her immediate release.

There was no mention about the two others in the statement.