March 20, 2007	Tuesday	Safar 30, 1428

DHAKA, March 19: A sessions judge court on Monday evening rejected the bail plea of Tarique Rahman, elder son of former prime minister Khaleda Zia, in an extortion case. Tarique, also the senior joint secretary general of Khaleda’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party, was taken in custody on March 8 from his mother’s cantonment residence under the emergency power rules. He was then charged with extortion of Taka one crore from a businessman owning a construction farm.

Police submitted charge-sheet to a metropolitan magistrate court in Dhaka on Sunday. Sub-inspector Mahbub Morshed, the investigation officer of the case, submitted the charge-sheet against Tarique and Apu mentioning names of 12 people as prosecution witnesses.

The court accepted the charge-sheet on Monday and issued ‘warrant for property attachment’ of the co-accused in the case, Nuruddin Ahmed Apu, and asked the police to either arrest him or confiscate Apu’s properties from his village home.

The defence counsels, including BNP’s senior leader advocate Khandakar Mahbubuddin Ahmed and former attorney generals AJ Mohammad Ali, appeared in the court and sought Tarique’s bail.

Moving the bail petition, Mahbubuddin shed his tears before magistrate and said: “It is unfortunate that Tarique, a visionary of the nation and a son of former president Ziaur Rahman, is kept in prison with false charges.”