Arson charges framed against Mahmudur

A Dhaka court yesterday framed charges against Mahmudur Rahman, acting editor of the Bangla daily Amar Desh, and eight others in an arson case filed in 2013.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ali Mashud Sheikh passed the order, rejecting discharge petitions of the accused and later set next year's February 28 for starting the trial.

Mahmudur and two other accused pleaded innocent and demanded “justice” when the magistrate read out the charges to them.

The others indicted, including BNP leader Anwaruzzaman Anwar, were on bail. Yesterday, the court also cancelled their bail and issued arrest warrants for them as they failed to appear before it. 

The case was filed with Tejgaon Police Station on March 17, 2013 in connection with an arson attack on a vehicle at Farmgate area during hartal and pre-hartal violence. Mahmudur was shown arrested in the lawsuit the next month for his alleged role in provoking the attack.

Mahmudur, now in jail, is facing 68 cases. In last three years, he did not seek bail in any of them.

He was first detained on June 2, 2010, in a case filed for resisting his arrest, assaulting law enforcers and preventing them from performing their duties in the capital.

Later in August, the Supreme Court sentenced him to six months' imprisonment and fined him Tk 1 lakh for contempt of court. He was released on March 17 the next year.  

He was arrested again in April, 2013 in connection with his alleged role in publishing a Skype conversation between Justice Md Nizamul Huq, the then chairman of International Crimes Tribunal-1, and Ahmed Ziauddin, an expatriate Bangladeshi legal expert.