Suprobhat bus owner remanded

The bus owner of Suprobhat Paribahan has been placed on three-day remand in a case filed over the road crash that killed university student Abrar Ahmed back last month.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Baki Billah passed the order after Kazi Shariful Islam, inspector of Detective Branch (DB), produced bus owner Nani Gopal Sarker with a remand prayer.

The court also rejected the bail petition placed before it by Sarker’s lawyer.

Detectives arrested Nani Gopal Sarker, 42, from Mugda, Dhaka yesterday, Masudur Rahman, spokesperson for Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said in a press briefing today.

During primary interrogation, Gopal, who was on the run, confessed that the bus was being driven by its conductor, Yasin, who had no driving license, the DMP official said.

On March 19, Abrar was killed when conductor Yasin Arafat, as instructed by the bus owner, was steering the vehicle at Nodda near Dhaka’s Bashundhara Residential area.

Before the death of Abrar, passengers caught the driver and handed him over to police after the vehicle hit and injured Synthia Islam Mukta, 20, a student of Mirpur Ideal Girls' Laboratory Institute near Banshtala area of Shahjadpur around 5:45pm.

Conductor Yasin called Gopal, owner of the bus and informed him about the detention of driver, Sirajul Islam.

Then, Gopal asked Yasin to flee the scene as agitated people might torch the bus, DMP official Masudur told reporters quoting the bus owner.

Endorsing his offence for giving such directive to the conductor, Gopal told the law enforcers that he was running the vehicle in connivance with Suprobhat Paribahan company on Sadarghat-Gazipur rout despite having permission on Dhaka-Brahmanbaria rout, Masudur said.

Gopal purchased the bus two to two-and-half years ago.

A bus owner’s primary responsibility is to ensure immediate treatment of victims after an accident takes place, Masudur said. But without doing so, Gopal committed an offense by asking conductor of his bus to flee the spot immediately, he added.

Abrar’s father Arif Ahmed Chowdhury lodged a case with Gulshan Police Station on the day of the incident.

Police arrested driver Sirajul on the same day and conductor Yasin and helper Ibrahim on March 27.