Bangladesh cricketer Shahadat lands in jail after three-day police remand

Bangladesh national team cricketer Shahadat Hossain has been sent to jail after he spent three days in police remand in a case concerning the physical torture of an underage house help.

His wife Jesmin Jahan, who stands accused as well, was also ordered into jail following her arrest last week.

Mirpur Police Station Inspector (Investigation) Shafiqur Rahman produced Hossain before a Dhaka court on Tuesday and pleaded for his detention in prison until his investigation was over.

Another court last Thursday granted police three days to question Hossain.

Hossain’s lawyer Kazi Md Nazibullah Hiru had pleaded for his bail.

On Monday, he told the court, “Hossain, ‘a valuable asset of Bangladesh’s cricket’, should not be imprisoned because of someone else’s (his wife) crime.”

The lawyer, however, admitted at the hearing that the torture of the 11-year-old house help was ‘a violent crime and an inhuman act’.

“But he (Hossain) should be granted bail for the sake of national cricket,” Hiru asserted.

His argument, however, did not seem to have any effect on the judge, who rejected the bail plea.

Police arrested Hossain’s wife Jahan on Oct 4 in Dhaka. A court later allowed the law-enforcers to question her at the jail gate.

Journalist Khandkar Mozzamel Haque found the girl at Mirpur’s Pallabi and took her to the local police station several hours after Hossain filed a complaint on Sep 6, claiming the house help had gone missing.

Haque had filed the case against the couple as the 11-year-old alleged the cricketer and his wife used to torture her.

The couple had gone into hiding after the case was filed.

The girl received treatment at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital’s One Stop Crisis Centre.

There, she told journalists how Hossain and Jahan would beat her and then treat her wounds.

The fast bowler last played for Bangladesh in May against Pakistan. He went off the field on the first day of first Test with a leg injury.

Bangladesh Cricket Board had him treated in Australia and he was going through a rehabilitation programme.

The BCB had said that the reports of Hossain torturing a minor was ‘utterly embarrassing’ and banned the pacer from all forms of cricket until the charges were resolved.