Shaukat Mahmud arrested

Detectives arrested Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists faction president Shaukat Mahmud at Panthapath in Dhaka on Tuesday in a case of arson attack on a bus at Jatrabari on January 23.
A team of plainclothes police intercepted his car in front of Samarai Convention Centre at Pantapath and picked him up while he was going to the convention centre to attend a programme of Adarsha Dhaka Andolan, said Abdul Momen, an assistant of Shaukat, also former National Press Club president.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner for media and public relations Muntasirul Islam told New Age that Shaukat was named in the charge sheets in three cases filed with Jatrabari police station for the arson attack on a bus on January 23 that killed one and burned 27.
Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters that Shaukat was arrested on specific charges.
Detectives said that Shaukat, also an adviser to Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia, was arrested when he was entering Samarai Convention Centre to attend a scheduled news conference of Adarsha Dhaka Andolan on irregularities in the recent city corporation polls.
The police said that the organisers obtained no permission for holding the news conference.
Momen said that when they reached in front of Basundhara Shopping Mall a car intercepted them and people in the car asked Shaukat to get out of his car.
Shaukat asked who they were and what their motive was.
The plainclothes people did not reply, rather forcibly picked up Shaukat up in their car.
‘Later we followed the car, and found that it entered Detective Branch office at Minto road,’ added Momen.
Police said that they might produce Shaukat before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court today in some other cases, in which also he was named.
A faction of Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists condemned the arrest and said that it was the first incident when a top leader of the federation was arrested after the impendence.
Federation faction leader M Abdullah said that they would hold a rally in front of National Press Club today demanding immediate release of Shaukat.

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