JCD leaders gathered firearms on orders from BNP high-ups: DB

The six Chhatra Dal leaders arrested in Dhaka obtained weapons from two districts on the instructions of high-ups in the BNP and its student front, according to police detectives.

The men were arrested during a raid on a house in Lalbagh on Saturday, said Joint Commissioner Khondoker Nurunnabi of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, reports bdnews24.com.

The arrestees are Dhaka University Chhatra Dal's Senior Joint General Secretary Mominul Islam Hejisan, Vice-President Md Hasanur Rahman Hasan, Joint General Secretary Md Abdullah Ar Riyad, and Central Committee Joint Organising Secretary Md Shahadat Hossain, along with the organisation's former senior joint general secretary at Jahangirnagar University Zahir Uddin Mohammad Babar, and former vice-president at a private university Mohammad Arif Billah.

Officers of the DMP's Detective Branch (DB) also recovered firearms from the Chhatra Dal leaders.

During the preliminary interrogation, the arrestees ‘confessed’ that they collected firearms from Pabna and Cox’s Bazar, DB officer Nurunnabi said at a media briefing on Sunday.

“They said they collected the firearms on orders from senior leaders to sabotage the upcoming national election.”

Police will make a court application to question the arrestees in custody in a bid to identify the people who gave the order, Nurunnabi added.

“The arrestees said the high command of the BNP and its student wing's units at Dhaka University and other private universities were planning to bolster the party's protest movement,” said Nurunnabi.

“They were planning to display the illegal firearms and create panic among the public in order to destabilise the government.”

Nurunnabi said police arrested 12 people, including the acting secretary of the Dhaka South Metropolitan BNP, Tanvir Ahmed Robin, on Saturday and would present them before a court over an old case.