BANGLADESH

Detective branch police have detained Mohammad Nurul Islam, general secretary of Narsinghdi district's Sadar upazila unit of BNP, at the jail gate as he moved to walk free hours after securing bail in the case over the murder of Narsinghdi municipality mayor Lokman Hossain.

DB police inspector Gaurachandra Majumder told that the Tuesday evening arrest was carried out in line with "depositions of accused arrested over the murder of Narsinghdi Government College student union general secretary Billal Hossain Rony".

On Mar 15 last year, Chhatra Dal leader Rony was chopped and shot dead on the college premises in broad daylight and it is alleged that the murder was the result of a factional clash in BNP.

Rony's elder brother Abul Fazal had filed a case against 14, though Nurul did not find a mention there. Later, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) was assigned to probe the case.

Earlier in the day, the court of Narsinghdi district and sessions judge Mohammad Shahjahan granted him bail after chief judicial magistrate Nitai Chandra Saha ordered him back to jail on being produced before the court after a three-day remand.

Following the chief judicial magistrate court's order, lawyers for the accused moved to the district and sessions judge's court for his bail.

Doctors at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) had pronounced Lokman, 43, dead about three hours after he was shot by a masked gunman around 8pm in front of the Awami League office at Sadar Road in Narsinghdi on Nov 1.

Lokman's younger brother Kamruzzaman filed a murder case on Nov 3 accusing telecommunications minister Rajiuddin Ahmed Raju's brother Salahuddin Ahmed Bachchu and 13 others, mostly leaders and activists of Awami League.

Nurul, the number five accused in the murder case, was arrested at the Shahjalal International Airport in the capital by the immigration police on Jan 29 on his arrival from Malaysia.

He had gone to Malaysia before the murder was committed.