Police have sought an order to keep Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, former information adviser to ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina and chairman of private television channel DBC News, in jail in a case filed over the killing of madrasa student Md Arif in Jatrabari during the July uprising.
Sub-Inspector Mohammad Amir Hossain of Jatrabari Police Station, the investigation officer in the case, filed the application.
“There is no immediate plan to seek his remand. We have applied to keep him in jail,” he said.
SI Mohin Uddin of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) prosecution division confirmed that a hearing on the application was held at the Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Court.
Police arrested Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury from the DBC News office in the capital’s Mohakhali area on Wednesday afternoon. They also took the television channel’s chief crime reporter, Rajib Ghosh, into custody.
Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury is also the editor and publisher of The Daily Observer.
Following the arrest, DMP Deputy Commissioner (Public Relations) Aktar Hossain said an “untoward situation” had arisen at DBC over the broadcast of a news report.
“Journalists Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury and Rajib Ghosh were taken into DB custody from there,” he said.
However, he did not elaborate on the circumstances that led to the incident.
Later that night, police showed Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury arrested in the murder case.
Meanwhile, DMP Detective Branch chief Shafiqul Islam said a decision had been made to release DBC News special correspondent Rajib Ghosh after obtaining a bond from him.
According to the case statement, Arif, a first-year Alim student at Lord Hardinge Senior Fazil Madrasa, was shot in the eye during an exchange of gunfire between police and Awami League leaders and activists near Boubazar in Jatrabari’s Kutubkhali area on the afternoon of July 19, 2024, during the July uprising.
He was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where the on-duty doctors declared him dead.
Arif’s father, Md Yusuf filed a murder case with Jatrabari Police Station on August 25, 2024, naming Sheikh Hasina and 232 others.
Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury is listed as the 53rd accused in the case.
