UP chairman denied bail, sent to jail

A Pirojpur court yesterday sent a union parishad (UP) chairman to jail in connection with a case for vandalising a Hindu temple in Sadar upazila on October 7.

The accused, Sikdermallik UP Chairman Advocate Shahidul Islam, is also law secretary of the district unit Awami League (AL).

District and Sessions Judge Abdul Mannan passed the order after Shahidul appeared before the court seeking bail in the case yesterday noon and sent him to jail.

Earlier, a Supreme Court bench granted Shahidul ad-interim bail for eight weeks and ordered him to appear before Pirojpur court within the time limit.

Locals said there had been a dispute between local Hindus and Shahidul over the ownership of a temple land at Panchpara Bazar for nearly 11 years.

On October 7, some 45 to 50 men loyal to Shahidul vandalised the Kali Temple around 2:30am in a bid to grab its land.

The criminals fled the scene after locals sensed their presence and started protesting the vandalism.

Subhas Mistry, president of the temple managing committee, filed a case with Pirojpur Sadar Police Station against 45 people, in which 10 people were named with Shahidul being the prime accused.

After the incident, police detained six of the accused, who are now out of jail on bail, while eight more accused in the case took ad-interim bail from the High Court.