Moudud, Mahbub denied bail

A court here on Sunday rejected the bail petition of two BNP leaders Barrister Moudud Ahmed and BNP chairperson’s adviser Khandker Mahbub Hossain in separate criminal cases. Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Sessions Judge Mohamamad Zahurul Haque passed the order after hearing the bail pleas. On December 17 last year, the ACC filed the case against Moudud and his brother Manzur Ahmed on charge of grabbing a government house at Gulshan, now worth about Tk 300 crore. On January 21 last year, a Dhaka court showed Moudud arrested in the case. Meanwhile, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ali Masud Sheikh asked the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) to interrogate Moudud for three days at the jail gate in the case filed on January 27. 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 against the name of his wife, Inge Maria Flatz, an Austrian national, in 1965. Ehsan was a Pakistani national. As Ehsan and Flatz (both non-Bengalis) had left the country before the announcement of the list of government abandoned houses (the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs) 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 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 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. Khandker Mahbub was arrested by DB police from near the Kadam Foara intersection adjacent to the Jatiya Press Club in the city on January 7, according to a news agency.