Email suspect goes traceless

A young man arrested on Wednesday on charge of sending an email threatening Leader of the Opposition Sheikh Hasina with a fresh attack virtually remained traceless yesterday.

Intelligence agents picked up Shaibal Saha Partha from Hardnet cyber café on Elephant Road for allegedly sending the email as a Hikmatul Zihad activist to The Prothom Alo also claiming responsibility for the deadly grenade attack on an Awami League (AL) rally on August 21.

No intelligence agency admitted to keeping him in its custody and his family said nobody told them about his whereabouts until yesterday.

The law enforcement agencies did not take him to court four days into his arrest, although the law makes it mandatory to produce an arrestee to court in 24 hours.

Police said intelligence agencies were probing the case and Partha was not handed over to Dhanmondi police although he was held in a place under it.

Some intelligence agents said Partha was in the custody of the special branch (SB), the police department that looks after political cases, but its chief dismissed the claim.

"I don't know where he is," said Mohammad Abdul Qayyum, chief of SB.

But National Security Intelligence (NSI) sources said they picked up Partha for questioning and handed him over to the SB.

Assistant Superintendent Abdur Rashid of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), who is probing the grenade blasts, said Partha was yet to be handed over to them.

Partha's elder sister Pallabi told The Daily Star last night that they were in the dark about his whereabouts and condition as no government agency admitted his arrest.

"The owner of the cyber café called Partha by phone to offer him a job and he went there to be arrested," Pallabi said.

"We filed a general diary with Dhanmondi police on Wednesday, the day he went missing," she said, adding, "We learnt from newspaper reports the next day that he was arrested."

"On hearing the news, my mother fell sick," she said, breaking down in sobs. "We are in deep trouble. As a poor family, we have nobody to help us."

The grenade attack killed 19 people, including AL Women's Affairs Secretary Ivy Rahman and injured over 200 others.