Staff Reporter :Hours after arrest, journalist Shafik Rehman has been produced before a Dhaka court, and placed on a five-day remand in a case filed in connection with plotting to abduct and kill Sajeeb Wazed Joy, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s son and her ICT adviser. Metropolitan Magistrate Md Mazharul Islam passed the order on Saturday afternoon after Assistant Commissioner of Detective Branch (DB) of police Hasan Arafat, also investigation officer of the case, produced the noted journalist, who is known as adviser to BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia, before the court with a seven-day remand prayer. The court also rejected the bail plea filed by Shafik Rehman’s lawyer Sanaullah Miah.Earlier in the morning, DB police picked up Shafik Rehman, former editor of Bengali daily Jaijaidin, from his residence at Eskaton Garden in the city. Half an hour later, Deputy Commissioner (Media) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Maruf Hossain Sardar said, “Shafik Rehman has been arrested in a sedition case filed in 2015 at Paltan Police Station. He was taken to the DB headquarters on Minto Road in the city.”Shafik Rehman’s wife Taleya Rahman, executive director of Democracy Watch who is also a former BBC journalist, said that three people introducing themselves, first as journalists of Boishakhi Television, had come to their house to interview Shafik Rehman around 7:30 am. “They had no prior appointment and were only carrying a digital camera, which made me a bit suspicious. We told them to wait. At the time, my husband was asleep, but went down when we awoke him. The people claimed themselves to be DB men when we went down to meet them,” she said.Taleya said that the plainclothesmen had been rough with her household staff and pushed them around and also scolded them. “Later we heard that Shafik Rehman was arrested in a case,” she said. Dr Shawkhat Hossain Sayantho, a close associate of Shafik Rehman, said that Taleya got a call from the DB office hours after the journalist was picked up by the plainclothesmen. “The DB officials informed Taleya that Shafik Rehman was feeling sick and asked them to come to the DB office with his medicines,” he said. The case of the Paltan Police Station was filed on August 3 in 2015 against Mohammad Ullah Mamun, vice-president of BNP’s cultural wing Jasas.According to the case statement, Mamun along with some top leaders of BNP and its allies met at different places in Bangladesh, including Jasas office, and also in the USA before September 2012 and conspired to ‘abduct and kill’ Sajeeb Wazed Joy. However, only Mamun was named as an accused in the First Information Report (FIR) of the case.In a Facebook post on March 9, Joy wrote: “When someone tries to kill me, I take it very personally. No matter how high up they may be in the BNP, I will bring them to justice.”
