Mintu Chowdhury and Mithun Chowdhury
Chittagong, Oct 20 (bdnews24.com) — Senior BNP leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury says he is ready to be arrested amid rumours that police detectives were at his house to detain him late Tuesday night.
"I've assumed that I could be whisked away. I'll face it."
"Fakhruddin government (previous caretaker government chief advisor) put me in prison for 20 months in a case for stealing cow. Similarly, this government can throw me in prison in a chicken theft case," the BNP policymaker told reporters around 2:15am on Wednesday.
Soon after the policemen came around 11:15pm, BNP leaders and activists were flocking in droves to the Goods Hill home at Chittagong city's Gani Bakery crossing on rumours that he might be arrested. Some five Detective Branch policemen went to the house around 11:15pm.
When asked if had seen policemen at his home, he answered 'no'. He added that eight policemen poke to his supporters before they left.
"I could go there (to the police station) if the government asked me to over telephone. They (police) needed not take so much trouble," he added.
He urged his supporters not to vandalise vehicles, but expressed the hope that they will do everything possible to sever ties with 'Dhaka government'.
The supporters were chanting slogans that houses will burn should anything happen to Chowdhury, who according to some ministers will be put on trial for crimes against humanity during the nation's war of independence from Pakistan in 1971.
At 1:30am on Wednesday, he told bdnews24.com that his "innocent statement" made on Sunday, in which he had claimed that the dispute over BNP chief Khaleda Zia's cantonment mansion should be settled by the army, might have irked certain quarters in the government.
"The army," he had argued in his statements at a press conference, "had given the house to the widow of a former chief of staff.
"Moreover, the High Court didn't take away the title of the property from Khaleda Zia ... it just gave its verdict on the legality of the notice (asking her to leave the house)," Chowdhury added.
When told he sounded "relaxed", S Q Chowdhury said he would quote Confucius to say "when rape is inevitable, why not enjoy it".
Chowdhury was then sitting at his balcony with city general secretary Shahadat Hossain, vice-president Dastagir Chowdhury, Jamaat-e-Islami leader and former MP Shahjahan Chowdhury and Rangunia Upazila chairman Abu Hasnat, among others.
As reporters asked him about war crimes trial, Chowdhury said the trial was a 'seasonal activity'. "Singer Haider Ali sings well. Trial of war crimes is like his songs. This song [trial] will also fade away when the season is gone."
An investigation team of the International Crimes Tribunal last month disclosed, following a visit to Rauzan, his native home, that it got statements of witnesses about his involvement in crimes during the liberation war.
There are allegations that Chowdhury collaborated with Pakistani Army to kill Nutan Chandra Singha, then the owner of a herbal medicine factory, Kundeshwari Aushudhalay, on April 13, 1971.
Chowdhury rushed to Chittagong from Dhaka the same day, rejected the allegations and questioned the credibility and jurisdiction of the International Crimes Tribunal.
He commented that because of the BDR killings politicians cannot show their faces to the army.
"When the Supreme Court was asked for opinions on the trial of the BDR killings, they said new laws could not be framed to try old events.
"And now trial of a 39-year-old issue [war crimes trial] is going on after forming the International Crimes Tribunal under a new law," he added, winking at journalists.
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