A Dhaka court has placed JKG Healthcare Chairman Dr Sabrina Arif Chowdhury on a two-day remand in a case filed for possessing two national identity cards (NIDs) and being a dual voter.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Tofazzal Hossain passed the order on Thursday after Md Mominul Islam, a sub-inspector of Badda police station and also the investigating officer of the case, produced Sabrina before the court seeking a five- day remand for interrogating her over the case.
Opposing the remand, defense counsel Saifuzzaman Tuhin submitted a bail petition as well as a remand rejection prayer to the court for Sabrina. But the court rejected the bail plea after the hearing.
Saifuzzaman Tuhin confirmed the matter to Dhaka Tribune.
Also read- NID fraud: EC files case against JKG Chairman Dr Sabrina
Md Momin Miah, the thana election officer of Gulshan, filed the case against Sabrina at the Badda police station on Monday.
The accused got her first NID as a resident of Mohammadpur in 2009 and got her second NID as a Badda resident by falsifying information.
According to the case statement, Sabrina applied to the project office of NID Wing in Agargaon on January 7, 2016, to become a voter, and gave her fingerprints and biometric information. The Gulshan election office was then asked to verify her information. Sabrina went to the election office on April 27, 2016 with the necessary documents.
After scrutinizing the documents, the then election officer in the investigation report recommended that she could be made a voter. She subsequently became a voter in 2016.
On August 25, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) found that Dr Sabrina had two NID cards. The national anti-graft watchdog then sent a letter to the Election Commission (EC) asking how Sabrina had two active NIDs.
The case against her has been filed under sections 14 and 15 of the National Identity Registration Act, 2010 which states that anyone who becomes a voter by providing false information is liable to imprisonment for one year or a fine of Tk20,000, or both. This punishment also applies for possessing two NIDs.
