Bangla politicians sent to jail

Dhaka, June 3 (UNI) Two former Ministers -- Awami League General Secretary Abdul Jalil and its presidium member Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim -- were today sent to jail under the Special Powers Act.

Meanwhile former state minister of Home Affairs and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Lutfuzzaman Babar was put on a fresh four-day remand as a murder case was filed against him.

The two Awami League leaders were produced before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court here this afternoon on expiry of the police remand.

Magistrate M A Rouf rejected their bail petitions and sent Jalil and Selim to jail.

Police prosecutor Mir Nasirul Alam told the court that Jalil was engaged in clandestine activities in violation of the Emergency Rules that banned all political activities.

On May 28, the prosecutor said he had a secret meeting in his Mercantile Bank here with a group of party activists and instigated the cadres to violate the Emergency Rules, create disturbances and destabilise the situation. He was also engaged in anti-state activities, said the prosecutor in a report to the court.

Jalil, Selim and Babar who were arrested on May 28 were interrogated at the army-led joint interrogation cell on collection of party fund,abuse of powers and amassing money illegally while they were in power.

Meanwhile, the Gulshan police station here filed a case against Babar under the Arms Act as they recovered a foreign revolver without a license from his possession.

Following the arrest of the former minister on May 28, police searched his Gulshan residence and found four firearms.

''Though he managed to show legal documents for a pistol, a rifle and a shotgun, he failed to show the legal document of the foreign-made revolver,'' says the case statement.

The present army backed caretaker government launched a high profile crackdown arresting the country's senior politicians, former ministers and MPs in a bid to clean up politics before holding the general elections at the end of next year.

UNI