2 Biman staff sent to jail after remand

A Dhaka court yesterday sent two suspended staff of Biman Bangladesh Airlines to jail on completion of their 15 days' remand in two phases in a case filed over the technical glitch in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's flight.

The order came against engineer Rokonuzzaman and junior technician Siddiqur Rahman after they had surrendered before the court seeking bail.

Earlier another Dhaka court yesterday asked Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police to submit on February 19 the probe report of the case.

Metropolitan Magistrate Golam Nabi passed the order after Mahbub Alom, an inspector of CTTC unit and investigation officer (IO) of the case, failed to submit any probe report yesterday.

Nine employees of Bangladesh Biman Airlines were made accused in the case filed under the Special Powers Act with Airport Police Station on December 21.

Wing Commander (retd) MM Asaduzzaman, director of engineering and material management of Biman, filed the case.

Seven of the nine suspended employees were arrested hours after the case was filed.

The same day, the seven were placed on seven days' remand each when they were produced before the court.

Meantime, two more officials were also arrested and remanded for seven days each on January 10.

On November 27, a Biman flight carrying the prime minister had to make an emergency landing at the Ashgabat International Airport Turkmenistan on her way to Budapest as engine-1 of the plane was losing oil pressure.

After the landing, engineers found that a nut was loose causing the oil pressure loss.