Detectives to grill Daud Merchant over 'suspected ties to militants'

A Dhaka court has sent Abdur Rauf Daud Merchant to three days of remand after he was shown arrested under Section 54.

Detective Branch (DB) SI Golam Rasul produced the man, convicted of killing Indian music baron Gulshan Kumar, at the Chief Metropolitan Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

Bail was pleaded for Merchant by advocate Hemayet Uddin Hiron.

An alleged aide of Dubai-based Indian mafia Daud Ibrahim, Merchant has been in Bangladesh prison for five years after he trespassed into the country in 2009.

He was rearrested from outside Gazipur's Kashimpur Jail as soon as he was released on bail on Monday, several DB sources told bdnews24.com, but his remand plea said he was arrested from Khilgaon intersection on Tuesday.

Detectives first arrested him in 2009 while he was hiding in the residence of one Kamal Mian at Mourail in Brahmanbarhia.

The Indian national had no passport or visa with him, said the DB while pleading to take him into remand for seven days.

It said remand was necessary to find out if he had any ties to terror militants.

Merchant was serving life sentence in an Indian jail from 2002 and was reported absconding by Mumbai police after being released on parole in April, 2009 to visit his family in Mumbra, a small town about 40 km from Mumbai.