Pintu held for abetting BDR mutineers

Former BNP lawmaker, Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu, was detained at the premises of the High Court on Tuesday on charges of abetting BDR mutineers to flee their headquarters at Pilkhana on February 25-26. Pintu is the first prominent political figure to have been arrested after the sensational incident. A team of Detective Branch Police, with the help of Shahbagh police station, picked him up at around 5:15 pm just after he emerged from the High Court where he had gone to pursue a writ. Monirul Islam, deputy commissioner of Detective Branch (South), confirming his arrest told the media, ''We have arrested Pintu and brought him in our custody on the basis of requisition from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) which is investigating the BDR mutiny case''. Pintu had submitted a petition to the court after his name appeared in the national enquiry committee's report on the February 25-26 BDR mutiny. The 12-member national probe body headed by former secretary Anisuzzaman Khan on May 21 submitted a 309-page report to the Home Ministry, in which they revealed that Pintu had instigated the mutineers and helped them flee the scene after the bloody carnage. The probe report stated: ''Former BNP lawmaker Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu helped them flee by arranging engine-run boats to cross the Buriganga at Keraniganj ferry ghat''. Thousands of border guards, guilty and innocent among them, fled the Peelkhana compound in the chaos of the mutiny and its aftermath. Court sources said Pintu's lawyer Mahbub Uddin Khokon filed a writ petition with the bench of justice Tariqul Haqim and justice Azizul Haque on Sunday for ''no harassment or arrest'' of Pintu in the BDR mutiny case. But the bench didn't give its ruling on Tuesday and his lawyer withdrew the petition. Earlier, Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu had been sent to jail after he turned himself to a Dhaka court seeking bail in two cases for attempted murder and theft on February 15, 2007. A former leader of JCD, the student wing of BNP, Pintu's name is closely linked with several crimes and he had been evading arrest since the joint forces launched a countrywide hunt for top corrupt people and criminals in January 2007.SNM/ June 03