Hefazat-e-Islam chief Shah Ahmed Shafi has arrived in Chittagong on Sunday evening, after a panel of law enforcement officials paid him a visit earlier in the day.
Sources said a flight of Regent Airways carrying the Hefazat chief landed at the Shah Amanat International Airport at 7:40pm.Earlier in the day, Law enforcers took him out of Hefazat's city office.
Ahmad Shafi had been staying at a house in Lalbagh area since Sunday when violence erupted during the Hefazat's Dhaka siege.
Our correspondent reported that the chief of the Islamist platform left his Lalbagh office on Monday afternoon in a car guarded by plain cloth policemen, apparently on his way to the Dhaka airport to take a flight to Chittagong.
DC of Lalbag Zone Harun-or Rashid went inside the residence and stayed there for about an hour.
However, Harun said police had no relation with Shafi’s leaving Dhaka. “I just came to see the situation as this area falls under my jurisdiction,” Harun told reporters before leaving the Lalbagh residence where Shafi was staying.
He said as far as he knew, the Hefazat chief is going back to his home town Chittagong.
“There was no policeman in Shafi’s car. I learned that he is going to the airport. He might be going home,” DC Harun said. Shafi’s son Anas Madani and d two other Hefazat men--TS Shafiul Islam and Khadem Towhid---had been accompanying him.
A text message, from Dhaka Metropolitan Police Regular Service, sent to a senior correspondent of Dhaka Tribune has dismissed any allegation of detaining the veteran Hefazat leader.
It reads: “DMP hasn’t arrested Ahmed Shafi. Any news of arresting him is false”
Earlier in the morning, a team of officials of law enforcement agencies, led by Lalbag DC Harun-ar-Rashid, entered the temporary office of Hefazat, set up at the office of the Islami Oikya Jote in the capital’s Lalbagh area Monday afternoon. The panel of law enforcers’ held meeting with Shafi and other Hefazat leaders there for more than an hour.
Our Staff Reporter Manik Miazee, who was at the spot, said heavy deployment of police and elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) were seen around the premises since Monday morning.
Hefazat supporters took position at six key entry points to Dhaka and effectively cut off the capital from rest of the country on Sunday, according to a pre-scheduled demonstration to press home its 13-point demand. They also held a rally at Motijheel Shapla Chattar and vowed to stay there until their demands were met. But law enforcers drove them away late at night.
Clashes erupted in Paltan, Gulistan, Bijoynagar, Kakrail and Naya Paltan on Sunday. At least 22 were killed during the clashes that spread outside Dhaka and continued till Monday evening.
The Chittagong-based platform began their movement against those they call ‘atheists’ demanding capital punishment for them.
