Dhaka: A Dhaka court Wednesday said no to police plea for remanding arrested acting editor of Amar Desh Mahmudur Rahman and sent him to jail, amid a row over government action closing down the Bengali daily.

The court, instead, asked the cops to quiz him at jail gate within the next three days in a case filed against him on charge of “obstructing police from discharging their duties”.

Metropolitan Magistrate Nazrul Islam passed the orders after Tejgaon police produced Mahmudur Rahman before the court seeking a five-day remand for interrogating him in two cases.

Later, Mahmud was sent to jail.

Police arrested him early Wednesday from the Amar Desh office. Later, SI Safiqur Rahman filed another case against him and other staff members of the newspaper with Tejgaon thana for “interrupting police action”.

Earlier Tuesday, publisher of the paper Hasmat Ali filed a deception case against Mahmudur Rahman with Tejgao Industrial area thana at about 8 pm.

On the day (Tuesday), the government cancelled the declaration of the newspaper citing that it has no authorized publisher.

Sanaullah Mian, the lawyer for Mahmudur Rahman, told banglanews24.com that the cases are “false”.

“He was staying at the office during police raid so interruption of police activities is beyond question,” said the lawyer.

Meanwhile, the factions of Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) and Dhaka Union of Journalists (DUJ) held a rally in front of the National Press Club in protest against the closure of Amar Desh and the arrest of Mahmudur Rahman.

The leaders of the journalists’ forums issued an ultimatum for release of Mahmudur Rahman and resumption of the publication of the newspaper by Saturday.


SF/MMK/ARF/SMS/MUA