Online Desk: Two activists of the Dhaka College unit of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) have been placed on remand by a court after arrest on charge of abducting an official of a private organisation after being failed to realise extortion. They are Jony Hasan and SM Shafique.

Police from the New Market Police Station arrested the two BCL activists from their room at North Hall of Dhaka College on Friday night. They were sent to court on Saturday and police pleaded to placed them on remand. The court later placed them ona one-day remand.

New Market Police Station officer-in-charge (OC) Shafiqul Gani Sabu said the two BCL activists were arrested in connection with a case filed for abducting the official of a private firm. Drives are being conducted to arrest other persons involved in the incident.

The case statement says that victim Md Mehedi Hasan works at a closed-circuit camera selling company, called “Ayan Sigmaind’ as quality controller. The accused realise extortion introducing them as the Dhaka College students. They had been seeking money from Mehedi over the last couple of days. As he declined to pay any extortion, the accused took away the CC cameras and other equipment from Basila Bridge area at Mohammadpur in the evening on May 25.

At night, Siam and Ramzan told Mehedi about it over phone and advised him to come to Dhaka College if he wanted to get his cameras back. Later, Mehedi sent his employee Touqir to Dhaka College. At that time, the accused demanded Tk 3 lakh ransom making Touqir as hostage. They even threatened to kill Touqir if they were denied the ransom. Later, the victim Mehedi went to Dhaka Coillege’s North Hostel where he was also made hostage. They tortured Mehedi and Touqir making them hostages. At that time, they took away cash and ATM cards from them.

Though Touqir was freed after beating at night, Mehedi was tortured overnight in custody. As Mehedi fell sick at about 12:00 noon on Friday due to torture, he was left abandoned at Gausia crossing in New Market area. Receiving information, New Market police recovered him and admitted him at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). Later, the victim Mehedi filed a case mentioning the names of 15 persons including Jony Hasan and SM Shafique and against 10/12 unidentified accused.