Lawyers thwart 'kidnap' by cop

A group of lawyers yesterday stopped a plainclothes policeman from “abducting” a man in front of a Dhaka court.
Sub-Inspector of Ashulia Police Station Shawkat with another man tried to wrestle Iqbal Hossain, a Bangladeshi expatriate living in Germany, into a nondescript microbus before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court, said the lawyers.
The man accompanying Shawkat was identified as Mahbubur Rahman Majumdar, an employee of Iqbal's relative Rashed Morshed, a businessman, with whom Iqbal is entangled in a legal battle.
Iqbal said his relative Rashed borrowed Tk 15 lakh from him last year but is yet to pay him back. Last April, Iqbal filed a case against Rashed in this connection.
Iqbal said he was just coming out after hearing on the case when he was attacked.
The lawyers handed SI Shawkat over to court police while his aide Mahbubur was taken to Kotwali Police Station.
Meanwhile, Officer-in-Charge of Ashulia Police Station SM Badrul Alam told The Daily Star that the SI went there to arrest Iqbal in an assault case filed against him by one of Rashed's men.
However, when asked why Shawkat was in plainclothes, the OC said he did not know.     
Superintendent of Police Habibur Rahman of Dhaka said if Shawkat is found to guilty, action would be taken against him.