Sheltering militants: NSU teacher, 2 others get bail

Suspended North South University Professor Gias Uddin Ahsan and two others, arrested on charges of renting flats to Gulshan café attackers and withholding tenants' information from the police, today got bail.   

Metropolitan Magistrate Sadbir Yasir Ahsan Chowdhury passed the order after Humayun Kabir, an inspector of Counter Terrorism and Transitional Crime Unit, brought the charges which are ‘bailable’ against them.

The two other accused who got bail are Ahsan’s nephew Alam Chowdhury and Nurul Islam, owner of a flat in capital’s Shewrapara area.

Mahbubur Rahman Tuhin, another accused and manager of Ahsan’s house, was not granted bail as any lawyer stood for defending him.

The IO said in his report that he found allegations of renting flats to Gulshan café attackers and withholding tenants' information from the police against all the four accused.

Police arrested Gias Uddin Ahsan, his nephew Alam Chowdhury, and manager Mahbubur Rahman Tuhin on July 16 under Section-54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

The following day, they were placed on eight-day remand each after police sought 10-day remand for interrogating them.  

The same day, police also arrested Nurul Islam, owner of the Shewrapara flat, for not collecting tenants’ informati­on while renting out the flat to militants.

He was remanded for eight days but was sent to jail after he fell sick on July 20 on remand.

Ahsan, Alam and Tuhin were sent to jail after completion of their eight-day remand on July 26.

Earlier on August 4, former NSU teacher Hasnat Karim and Canadian university student Tahmid Hasib, who were among the survivors in Gulshan café attack, were remanded for eight days after being shown abetting the attackers.

Hasnat was later shown arrested in the Gulshan café attack and killing case and placed on an eight-day remand again.

Meanwhile, Tahmid was sent to jail on Saturday after completion of his remand for 14 days in two phases.     

On July 1, armed militants attacked Holey Artisan Bakery at diplomatic zone in Dhaka’s Gulshan area and killed 20 hostages -- nine Italian, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, one Indian and one Bangladesh-born US citizen. Two police officers were also killed in the incident.