Rizvi on 3-day remand in arson case

A Dhaka court yesterday placed BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed on a three-day remand in an arson case.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Alamgir Kabir Raj passed the order after Badda Police Station Sub-inspector Mosharraf Hossain, also investigation officer of the case, produced the BNP leader before the court with a 10-day remand prayer.

Following the remand order, pro-BNP lawyers raised a hue and cry in the courtroom that ended in a scuffle between the prosecution and the defence lawyers. Later, the court brought the situation under control. 

In the remand prayer, Mosharraf said as per Rizvi's direct and indirect instigation, the fugitive accused, including 30 named in the first information report of the case, torched a bus near RFL building in Badda on January 26 with the intention of killing its driver, helper and passengers.

The attack caused a loss of Tk 4 lakh. So, Rizvi needs to be placed on remand to find out the whereabouts of the fugitive accused, he said.

Opposing the plea, the defence told the court that their client was named in the case as part of a “conspiracy to harass him politically”.

Rizvi was suffering from different ailments. So they prayed for rejecting the remand prayer and granting him bail in the case, the defence lawyers said.      

After the hearing, the magistrate granted the remand prayer.

The BNP leader was arrested in the capital's Baridhara on Saturday for his alleged links with the recent violence and subversive activities.

Police then showed Rizvi arrested in the arson case.