Manna facing sedition charge
Court grants 10-day remand
Nagorik Oikya Convener Mahmudur Rahman Manna was placed on a 10-day remand yesterday on sedition charges over his alleged involvement in instigating the armed forces to topple the government.
The Metropolitan Magistrate of Dhaka, Mahbubur Rahman, gave the order after police sought the remand to interrogate Manna to know who else were involved in the alleged conspiracy.
In the court, Manna and his lawyers opposed the remand petition and sought bail.
On Tuesday night, Gulshan police sued Manna for sedition following the leak of his two telephone conversations.
In one conversation, Manna, also former organising secretary of the ruling Awami League, is heard talking to BNP leader Sadeque Hossain Khoka about strengthening the anti-government movement, among other issues.
The other call was made to an unknown person. During this conversation, the man asked Manna if he would like to sit with top army officers to talk about bringing a changeover in the country.
The case was filed around 20 hours after plainclothes men picked up Manna from his niece's house in Banani around 3:30am on Tuesday.
Amid controversies over the leaked phone calls, Manna had gone to his niece's house on Monday night.
The group of five to six men who picked him up identified themselves as detectives. They also told Manna's niece that they would take him to the DB headquarters on Minto Road, family sources said.
But on Tuesday morning top DB officials denied that they arrested him.
Officials later said the Rab arrested Manna from Dhanmondi on Tuesday night, a claim Manna rejected while talking to his family members in the court yesterday.
Police said the elite force handed Manna over to the detectives after Tuesday midnight.
According to family members, Manna could not recognise those who detained him or the place they took him to, as he was blindfolded.
Nilom Manna, his daughter, told The Daily Star, “Baba [father] told us that they [those who detained him] behaved well with him.”
Arguing against the remand petition, Manna told the court, “Everything I said during my two conversations is already public. What additional information will you [police] collect from me when I have nothing new to say about this? There is no need of taking me on remand.”
On the allegation of instigating the armed forces to revolt, Manna told the court he never said anything like that in the conversations.
The former vice-president of Dhaka University Central Students Union also protested that during the conversations he talked about the need of dead bodies to intensify the anti-government movement.
But prosecutors said they needed to quiz Manna to know the names and addresses of those, including a Bangladeshi living in Australia, “involved in a conspiracy” against the government.