RAB members escort Billal Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka TribuneMetropolitan Magistrate Lashkar Shohel Rana granted a four day remand for Billal and three days for Rahmat, after the case's after Investigation Officer (IO) Ishrat Jahan Amy, police inspector of victim support centre of DMP, asked for a 10 day remand.Also Read- Banani rape: Driver claims to have deleted video
In the remand prayer, the IO said that they wanted a 10-day remand to interrogate the suspects thoroughly and to increase chances of recovering the video of the rape that had allegedly been captured by Billal. Opposing the remand prayer, defence counsel Hamayat Uddin Molla submitted a bail petition for the accused, but it was rejected by the court after hearing. Earlier, driver Billal and bodyguard Rahmat, who are said to have assisted the double rape at Raintree hotel in the capital’s Banani on March 28, were arrested on Monday night.
Rahmat Ali, bodyguard of Shafat Ahmed CourtesyRapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested Billal raiding a hotel in Wari’s Nawabpur area around 6:00pm while Detective Branch of the DMP police arrested Rahmat in Gulshan-1 around an hour later.
Billal and Rahmat had been missing for more than a week, since details of the rape emerged on news media
Shadman Sakif and Shafat Ahmed, two of the other accused in the Banani rape case, were remanded on Friday, May 12. Shafaat and Shadman, who had been absconding since Tuesday, May 9, were arrested by police in Sylhet on Thursday night.
According to the case file, Shafat, the son of Dildar Ahmed, one of the owners of Apan Jewellers, and his friend Nayeem allegedly raped the two university students while Shafat’s bodyguard held the girls at gunpoint and Shafat’s driver Billal, 26, videotaped the incident.