BNP leaders Altaf, Hafizuddin jailed for 21 months

A court in Dhaka on Thursday sentenced three people, including former home minister and BNP’s Vice Chairman Air Vice Marshal (retd) Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, and Major (retd) Md Hafizuddin Ahmed, to jail for 21 months in a sabotage case filed with Gulshan police station in the capital.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Rajesh Chowdhury pronounced the judgement, and BNP lawyer Zia Uddin Zia confirmed the matter to 'Views Bangladesh'.

They were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment under one section of the case. In another section, they were jailed for one and a half years imprisonment and fined Tk 5,000 each; in default, they will have to suffer one month more in jail.

The court also sentenced five activists of BNP to three and a half years in jail in the same case. They are: MA Awal Khan, Md Russel, Moinul Islam, Babul Hossain alias Babul, and Alamgir Hossain alias Raju.

According to the case statement, the accused held an illegal rally in Mohakhali, Dhaka and obstructed police from conducting their duties on June 4, 2011. They also attacked policemen, vandalised and torched the vehicles. Later on April 29, 2014, Kamrul Hasan Talukdar, sub-inspector (SI) of Gulshan police station, submitted chargesheet in the case. The court on April 25, 2022, framed charges, initiating the trial officially.