Habiganj Municipal Mayor Golam Kibria Gaus, charged with the murder of former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria, has surrendered to a Habiganj court and has been sent to jail.
Published : 28 Dec 2014, 12:52 PM
Gaus, the BNP district unit general secretary, surrendered to the Senior Judicial Magistrate's Court in Habibganj and sought bail on Sunday morning.
Judge Rokeya Akter rejected the bail plea and sent him to prison, said Gaus's lawyer Nur Islam.
Meanwhile, BNP activists gathered in compound started protest demonstrations immediately after the court's decision.
On Dec 21, the court issued warrants of arrest against 11 persons including Khaleda Zia's former political secretary Harris Chowdhury, Sylhet Mayor Ariful Haq Chowdhury and the Habiganj mayor in the case over the murder of the former finance minister.
The court ordered police to file a report within Jan 8.
The arrest warrant followed the filing of a supplementary charge-sheet by investigation officer Meherun Nesa Parul, a Sylhet ASP, that added the names of another 11 persons.
With that, the number of suspects rose to 35.
Shah AMS Kibria was fatally wounded in a grenade attack on Jan 27 of 2005, when BNP-Jamaat alliance was in power, while returning from a rally in Habiganj Sadar. He died on the way to Dhaka.
His nephew Shah Monjurul Huda, Awami League leaders Abdur Rahim, Abul Hossain and Siddique Ali were also killed and over 100 party activists injured in the attack.
The then general secretary of the Habiganj Awami League unit, Abdul Majid Khan, filed two cases over the attacks – one for the killings and the other under the Explosives Act -- the same night.
The investigation officer Munshi Atiqur Rahman , ASP of CID , pressed charges against 10 people on Mar 20 the same year.
On May 3 the following year, the plaintiff objected to the charge-sheet at the Sylhet Speedy Trial Tribunal but the court rejected his plea.
He moved High Court on May 14, which issued a rule asking why further investigations would not be done.
The government moved the Appellate Division for a hearing on the High Court order four days later but was refused.
The CID's Assistant SP Rafiqul Islam was directed to conduct further investigations during the Fakhruddin Ahmed-led caretaker regime.
Islam accused 14 people, including former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, Bangladesh (HuJI) leader Mufti Hannan, in his charge-sheet submitted on June 20, 2011.
But Kibria's wife Asma Kibria filed an objection to the charge-sheet eight days later at the Habiganj court.
On Jan 5 the following year, Sylhet's Speedy Trial Tribunal accepted the objection and ASP Parul was made the third investigation officer to conduct further investigations.