Journo Shawkat Mahmud sent to jail after remand

A Dhaka court yesterday sent to jail Shawkat Mahmud, an adviser of the BNP chairperson and president of a faction of Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists, on expiry of a three-day remand in a case filed over the death of a man in an arson attack.

There was no bail petition and lawyer for Shawkat, said Sub-inspector Mohammad Mahmudur Rahman, also general recording officer of the court of Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Waez Kuruni Khan Chowdhury.

Shawkat was arrested in front of Samurai Convention Centre in Panthapath on August 18.

On January 9, miscreants hurled a petrol bomb at a private car in front of Celebration Community Centre in Moghbazar. The driver, Abul Kalam Azad, succumbed to his injures in Dhaka Medical College Hospital's burn unit on January 15.

Sub-inspector Atiqur Rahman Biswas then filed the case with Ramna Police Station in this connection.

Shawkat was arrested in three cases – over vandalism and arson attacks on vehicles and crude bomb explosions in Jatrabari, said Dhaka Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner (Media) Muntasirul Islam.