Court Correspondent :A Dhaka court on Sunday rejected the bail petitions of BNP Standing Committee member Barrister Moudud Ahmed and BNP Chairperson’s Adviser, and Bangladesh Bar Council Vice-Chairman Khandker Mahbub Hossain in separate cases.Dhaka’s Metropolitan Magistrate Sessions Judge Md Jahurul Haque passed the order after hearing on the bail petitions. On December 17 last year, the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) filed a case against Moudud and his brother Manzur Ahmed on the charge of grabbing a government house at Gulshan, worth about Tk 300 crore. On January 2, a court of Dhaka showed Moudud arrested in the case.Meanwhile, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ali Masud Sheikh allowed ACC to interrogate Moudud at the jail gate for three days in the case.According to the first information report (FIR), the Dhaka Improvement Trust, established in 1956 (now renamed Rajuk), handed over a one-bigha and 14 katha plot in Gulshan residential area to Mohammd Ehsan on December 30, 1961. Later, the land was registered in the name of his wife, Inge Maria Flatz, an Austrian national in 1965. Ehsan himself was a Pakistani citizen.As Ehsan and Flatz left the country before the announcement of the list of government abandoned houses on January 21, 1972, the plot was included in the list of abandoned houses.In August 1973, Moudud Ahmed allegedly prepared a fake power of attorney of Maria Flatz allegedly to grab the land and used it to gain his own interest. Since then, Moudud had been living in the house showing himself as a tenant of Maria Flatz.When Moudud was holding different posts as minister, deputy prime minister and prime minister during 1978-1989, he allegedly tried to grab the house abusing his power, the FIR said.On November 8 last year, plainclothes police arrested Moudud from the city’s Karwanbazar area, as he came out of Hotel Sonargaon.Besides, a case was filed with Ramna police station on March 2 last year against Khandker Mahbub Hossain, on charges of vandalizing vehicles, blasting cocktails and preventing police from discharging duties in Shantinagar and Malibagh areas in the city during a demonstration on the day. The DB (Detective Branch) police arrested him near the Kadam Foara intersection adjacent to the Jatiya Press Club in the city on January 7.
