Bangladesh News

Detained former ministers Moudud Ahmed, Nazmul Huda and Mirza Abbas and former lawmaker Abdul Wadud Bhuiyan yesterday denied holding meetings with party men in their BSMMU prison cells.

Sources said their replies to the show-cause notices issued on them did not satisfy the jail authorities that have evidence against the claims of these four VIP prisoners. Punitive measures like cancellation of their division status would be taken against them.

The jail authorities have already locked the doors of the cabins of Moudud, Huda, Mirza Abbas and former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar.

Authorities of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) would also take decisions today about discharging VIP prisoners who do not require staying in the hospital any longer.

Deputy Inspector General of Prisons Major Shamsul Haider Siddique said Wadud was taken back to Dhaka Central Jail yesterday evening while former BNP lawmaker Nasir Uddin Ahmed Pintu was shifted to Kashimpur Jail from the central jail.

Sources said Moudud and Huda, however, admitted that former BNP minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain “suddenly” came to meet them upon his release recently and that they did not invite him.

In their replies, they regretted the incident and sought acquittal of the allegations.

Talking to The Daily Star, Inspector General of Prisons (IG-Prisons) Brig Gen Zakir Hassan said, “We issued the show-cause notices on them on the basis of our intelligence reports and we have documents that they violated the jail code repeatedly.

“We had allowed them to walk on the corridor in front of their cabins considering that they were our ministers and lawmakers. But now we are not allowing this,” he said.

Zakir alleged that the VIP prisoners could violate jail codes because of the BSMMU authorities. A few high officials of BSMMU had unethically supported their overstay and that the hospital superintendent even misbehaved with Jail Superintendent Towhidul Islam on one occasion.

Towhid said when he went to the room of BSMMU Hospital Superintendent Brig Gen (retd) Mohammad Zahirul Islam to talk about the release of prisoners who do not need to stay at the hospital, Zahirul misbehaved with him and rudely asked him to leave the room.

BSMMU Vice-Chancellor Prof Nazrul Islam admitted the incident. He said, “We would take steps so that prisoners cannot meet party men and hold such meetings anymore.”

Earlier on Thursday and Friday, jail authorities suspended 28 jail guards posted at the BSMMU prison cells for negligence of duty and issued show-cause notices on them.