The Detective Branch (DB) of police arrested lawmaker Golam Maula Rony from city's Badda area on Wednesday afternoon.
Confirming the matter, Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Deputy Commissioner (Media) Masudur Rahman said: "A team of DB police picked up MP Rony at about 3:40pm from a newspaper office at Bashundhara Residential Area."
Rony was taken to DB headquarters at Mintoo Road in the capital after his arrest at 4:30pm.
Meanwhile, in an immediate reaction to the news, ruling AL General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam told the Dhaka Tribune that the party would take action against Rony if he was found guilty in the case against him.
“The party will take strict action against Rony if he is found guilty since we [Awami League] believe a convict should not have any association with politics,” he told journalists after addressing a conference of deputy commissioners at the prime minister’s office in the capital.
Earlier in the day, a Dhaka court issued an arrest warrant against Rony in connection with an attempt-to-murder case.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Shahriar Mahmud Adnan passed the order around 2pm in response to a bail cancellation petition filed by the plaintiff’s counsel.
Younus Ali, assistant manager at Independent Television, filed an “attempt-to-murder, vandalism and assault” case with the Shahbagh police station against Rony and 20 to 25 unnamed people on July 21. Later on Monday, Younus filed a general diary with the same police station alleging that Rony and his people threatened him and demanded that he withdraw the case filed against Rony.
The court also cancelled his bail that he secured earlier.
On Monday, Metropolitan Magistrate Shahriar Mohammad Adnan ordered the investigation officer of the case to submit a report in this connection within 24 hours.
Later, the plaintiff’s counsel filed a bail cancellation petition citing possible attack on the TV authorities.
The Awami League lawmaker from Patukhali allegedly assaulted two journalists from the private satellite news channel Independent Television on Saturday at his Meherba Plaza office in the capital’s Topkhana Road area.
Rony, a legislator from Patuakhali-3, surrendered before the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court on Sunday through his legal pleader Mohammad Kabir Hossain, and sought bail.
In his plea, the accused’s pleader said as Rony was a member of parliament and a law-abiding person, and since parliament was in session, he was entitled to receive bail.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Rezaul Karim granted him bail against a Tk5,000 bond.
Reporter Imitaz Sony and cameraman Muhsin Mukul were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital with bruises on their bodies.
The victims said Rony had physically assaulted them with the help of his associates when they went to his office in the afternoon.
They said they went to his office on a tip that a Tk20m bribe was going to change hands there.
The two broadcast journalists were allegedly kept confined inside Rony’s office for nearly two hours before members of law enforcement agencies and journalist leaders rescued them.
Sony and Mukul were working on a weekly crime show called “Talash.”