It’s impossible for Shafik Rehman to have been involved in plot to kill anyone: Taleya

Wife of journalist Shafik Rehman, who has been arrested for his alleged link with a ‘conspiracy to abduct and murder’ Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s son, says he cannot be involved in a plot to kill anyone.

Taleya Rehman has demanded the release of the chartered accountant-turned-magazine editor.

Speaking at a meeting at the National Press Club on Wednesday, she said, “He is scared of the sight of blood. That’s why he can’t take injections.

“Now, he is facing such an allegation at this old age! He is trying to kill someone? It’s impossible.”

Rehman was picked up by police detectives from his home at Dhaka's Eskaton on Saturday.

DMP Deputy Commissioner (Media) Maruf Hossain Sardar said Rehman had been shown arrested in a case concerning his alleged involvement in the ‘conspiracy to abduct and murder' Sajeeb Ahmed Wazed Joy.

Rehman was later produced before a Dhaka court, which granted police a five-day remand to question him.

Police claimed Rehman had admitted to have held meetings with a BNP leader’s son, Rizve Ahmed Caesar, who was sentenced to three and a half years in prison in the US in March last year for bribing a former FBI official to gather information regarding Joy as part of the plot.

Taleya said, “Shafik Rehman was picked up on a false and fabricated charge. Such an allegation has been levelled against the man who has introduced Valentine’s Day (in Bangladesh) and who loves the country.”

The Democracy Watch executive director highlighted Rehman’s role in Bangladesh’s Liberation War and demanded his immediate release.

“He is now an old man and sick. I don’t want him to languish in jail,” she said.

The meeting was arranged to demand his release.

Shafik Rehman, who holds both British and Bangladesh passports, is an accountant by training who has had on-and-off presence in the media almost throughout his life.

He came to prominence in the 1980s with his 'Jai Jai Din', a weekly views-magazine that often carried articles critical of General HM Ershad. His satirical piece –Diner por din– became popular with the middle class opposed to the military rule.

But his foray into mainstream journalism produced two super flops – first, 'Jai Jai Din Protidin,' which survived just 37 days in 1999 and then, during the 2001-6 BNP administration, Bashundhara Group-backed daily Jai Jai Din which lasted a little over four months. The ownership of daily Jai Jai Din later changed hands as Rehman departed and the paper failed as a business.

He has been the host of a lifestyle and chat show 'Lal Golap' on Bangla Vision tv channel.

He now edits a little-known magazine 'Mouchake Dhil'. He did some part-time work (translator/news reader) in London with the BBC's World Service.