The court yesterday sent Mozammel Haque Chowdhury, the secretary general of the Bangladesh Passenger Welfare Association to jail after a day’s police remand, rejecting his bail petition in a case filed over alleged extortion. The court also rejected the law enforcers’ plea for a five-day remand.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Golam Nabi passed the order after Investigation Officer (IO) in the case Bajlur Rahman, also a sub-inspector (SI) of the Mirpur Model Police Station, produced Mozammel before the court with a fresh five-day remand prayer, while defence lawyer Barrister Jyotirmoy Barua sought bail of Mozammel and the cancellation of the fresh remand prayer. In the remand prayer, it was said that important information had been gathered from Mozammel during the previous one-day remand. So it was necessary to extend Mozammel’s stay in police custody for further interrogation to get the names of his associates, the prayer said.  According to the remand prayer, the primary investigation had revealed that “the accused used to demand and extort money from various transport workers associations”. Meanwhile, leaders of the Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity (BJKS), a passengers’ welfare platform, yesterday condemned his arrest.  In a statement, the leaders alleged that police arrested the secretary general of their organisation, the biggest stakeholder in the transport sector representing 16 crore passengers, in a ‘false’ case just ahead of the passage of the draft Road Transport Bill in parliament as the government wants to ‘gag’ passengers’ voice.

 Earlier, on Thursday, police arrested Mozammel Haque in an extortion case from his home in Narayanganj around 3am.

 A man named Dulal had filed the case against him recently.

 In the case statement, complainant Md Dulal alleged that Mozammel, claiming to be a transport leader, demanded Tk 2 lakh from him, and he gave Mozammel Tk 10,000 in front of Sony Cinema Hall in Mirpur on September 3.

 Jatri Kalyan Samity publishes data on road and transport-related accidents and other public-interest issues. They regularly provide data on road crash fatalities during the Eid vacations. This association describes itself as a non-profit, non-political and passenger welfare organisation.