Star Online Report
Abdus Salam
A metropolitan court in Dhaka that sent Salam to jail will hear on Thursday his bail and remand prayers moved respectively by his lawyers and the police.
Producing him before the court of Meher Nigar, detectives placed a seven-day remand prayer.
Detectives today arrested Salam at his office early morning today.
“He (Salam) has been arrested in a case filed on November 26, 2014 under clauses 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of Section 8 of the Pornography Control Act 2012,” Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu said at a press briefing at his Secretariat office in Dhaka this morning.
“He will be produced before the court after investigation, according to the case,” he said.
Replying to the journalists’ queries about the allegation of sending ETV off-air, Inu said there had no such direction from the authorities concerned.
Inu added that he had recently collected a CD copy of a programme broadcast in Ekusher Chokh in 2014.
The arrest came after the privately-run TV channel was stopped for airing “too much coverage” of BNP Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman yesterday.
Sajed Romel, a senior reporter of the TV, said some people identifying themselves as detectives picked up Salam when he went down to the ground floor of the office around 3:30am.
The detectives forced out the chauffeur of Salam’s BMW and drove the car themselves after taking the ETV chairman in the car, he said.
Talking to The Daily Star Online earlier in the morning, Masudur Rahman, deputy commissioner (media) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said Salam had been arrested over a case filed with the Cantonment Police Station, filed under the Information and Communication Technology Act.
Abdus Salam was being kept at DMP headquarters and would be produced before a court by afternoon, the official added.
Early today, the transmission of ETV was stopped around 2:00am for allegedly giving too much coverage of Tarique Rahman’s speech where the BNP leader called out to his supporters not to return home until toppling the government of Sheikh Hasina.
Sources in the government said ETV might face legal action under the ICT act for giving too much coverage to a person wanted in over a dozen cases, including criminal ones.
