Elite force Rapid Action Battalion handed over Nagorik Oikya Jote chief Mahmudur Rahman Manna to Gulshan police station around midnight, officials said.
He was handed over to Gulshan police around 12:25am by a RAB team, Gulshan circle Assistant Commissioner Nurul Amin told the Dhaka Tribune.
Manna was shown arrested in a case filed yesterday by SI Sohel Rana of Gulshan police on charge of instigating the armed forces, sources said. He was immediately handed over to Detective Branch of Police for interrogation.
RAB’s media and legal wing Director Commander Mufti Mahmud claimed that they had arrested Manna from Dhanmondi area around 10:30pm yesterday.
Earlier, RAB’s Additional Director General Ziaul Ahsan confirmed to the Dhaka Tribune that the elite force personnel had arrested Manna. He, however, did not mention the time of making the arrest.
Manna could not be traced for nearly 20 hours after the law enforcers allegedly picked him up at the early hours yesterday.
His family earlier alleged that some people identifying themselves as law enforcers had abducted Manna, just a day after his leaked telephonic conversations triggered massive controversy.
Police, however, denied the allegations saying none of their wings had anything to do with Manna’s apparent disappearance.
The BNP, who along with its partners have been enforcing a countrywide transport blockade and intermittent hartals since January 6, yesterday demanded that Manna be returned to his family immediately.
On Monday, after the conversations got leaked, Manna expressed fears that he might be arrested anytime. So he took refuge at a relative’s house and that is where he had been picked up from, alleged Manna’s wife Meher Nigar.
On the other hand, Monirul Islam, chief of Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s (DMP’s) DB police, told the Dhaka Tribune that they were still scrutinising the leaked conversations and trying to determine if they contained anything provocative or actionable.
“So, at this stage, none of the units of DMP could have picked him up. But if anyone disguised as police abducted him, we will hunt them down and take legal action,” Monirul said.
The Dhaka Tribune earlier tried to contact Home State Minister Asaduzzaman Khan and police chief AKM Shahidul Haque, but failed.
Manna’s two telephonic conversations were made available on the internet on Monday by a number of online news portals. One of them was with senior BNP leader and ex-Dhaka mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka – who is now in the US – and the other with an unknown person.
Manna told Khoka that a few deaths in police or criminal action would not matter if Dhaka University students could be involved with the movement for toppling the government. He suggested that if the BNP could engineer the take-over of some DU halls of residence in a confrontation, that it would shake the government.
In the other conversation, he seems to have hinted that he is ready to talk with army officers if they were to seek his opinion about remedying the prevailing political crisis.
The unknown person offered Manna to arrange meetings between Manna and 12 out of 19 “running officers” with whom the caller had been in touch. Manna agreed. When the caller said he would give phone numbers of those officers, Manna said he was afraid to talk over the phone but later agreed to use Viber when suggested.
On Monday, Manna in a Facebook status update admitted that he had had these conversations but claimed that he had been misinterpreted. Several leaders of the ruling Awami League – of which he is a former organising secretary – demanded his arrest on sedition charges.
Nagorik Oikya cancelled a march programme in Dhaka scheduled for Monday, saying their leader was ill. More than 30 general diaries (GDs) have been filed with various police stations based on the leaked conversations.
Around 2pm yesterday, Manna’s family filed a separate GD with the Banani police station alleging that some people, who identified themselves as law enforcers, took him away.
Manna’s sister-in-law Sultana Begum said in the GD that six to seven people identifying themselves as DB police took Manna away around 3:30am from her Banani residence. Later, Meher Nigar told reporters that her husband went to his cousin’s house in Banani out of fear that he might be arrested. Police in plainclothes took him away without producing any arrest warrant, she said.
Inspector Sheikh Shahinur Rahman of Banani police said they had already quizzed three people – two housemaids and one security guard – in connection with the GD filed by Manna’s family.
Ruma and Jhuma, the maids who work at Sultana’s house, claimed that they had not seen anything as they were asleep. Security guard Mostafizur Rahman said his duty hours start at 6am and end at 8pm and so he was not there at the time mentioned in the GD.
Manna’s niece Shanama Sharmin said her uncle came over to their house from his Kalabagan residence around 11pm on Monday. At that time, she saw a white microbus standing in front of their house.
Mobayedur Rahman, Manna’s cousin, said he was surprised to see how a person could be picked up in that way from a secured area like Banani. They went to file the GD after learning that those who picked up his cousin were not policemen, he said.
Meanwhile, some activists of Chhatra League yesterday erased Manna’s name from a board containing the names of former vice-presidents of the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union (Ducsu). The group was led by Joydev Nandi, a central leader of Chhatra League. They have also removed Manna’s photograph from the Ducsu archive and set it on fire.
As a leftist student leader, he served twice as Ducsu vice-president in 1979 and 1980. He joined the Awami League in the 1990s following the toppling of HM Ershad’s military regime. Manna was the organising secretary of the Awami League during 2007-08. However, he lost his position in a party council in 2009.
Three years later, 62-year-old Manna formed Nagarik Oikya, initially a citizen’s body, which has been shaping up as a political party in recent times. Manna, along with eminent lawyer Dr Kamal Hossain, has been campaigning for a political dialogue between the Awami League and BNP to resolve the prevailing political stalemate.