Mahmudur won't be freed now

Mahmudur Rahman, acting editor of Bangla daily Amar Desh, was shown arrested in a bomb blast case yesterday, 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.

Meanwhile, BNP Joint Secretary General Rizvi Ahmed yesterday alleged that the government was creating barriers to the release of Mahmudur. The BNP leader sought intervention from Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha for his immediate release.

Earlier in the day, Metropolitan Magistrate Golam Nabi accepted a petition from police seeking to show the acting editor arrested in the bomb blast case.

Police also sought seven-day remand for Mahmudur to quiz him in connection with the case although he was not named in the first information report of the case.

Sub-inspector Harun-Or-Rashid of Shahbagh Police Station, also the investigating officer of the case, submitted the petition to the court.

The case was filed 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 blasting crude bombs in front of the Dhaka University central playground.     

SEDITION CASE

Sahidur Rahman, a prosecutor of the International Crimes Tribunal-1, filed the sedition case against Mahmudur with Tejgaon Police Station on December 13, 2012, under the Information and Communication Technology Act, 2006.

In the case, the acting editor was charged with sedition for publishing alleged Skype conversations between Justice Md Nizamul Huq, then chairman of ICT-1, and Ahmed Ziauddin, an expatriate Bangladeshi legal expert.

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.

BNP BLAMES GOVT

BNP Joint Secretary General Rizvi Ahmed accused the government of creating barriers to Mahmudur's release.

“The Amar Desh acting editor was expected to be released from jail today [Monday], but he was shown arrested in another case,” he told a press conference at the party's Nayapaltan headquarters.

Rizvi demanded the government free Mahmudur on bail as his health was not good.