POBNEWS24, Dhaka Aug 24, 2024 : A much-discussed and controversial former judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh AHM Shassuddin Chowdhury Manik was arrested by Border Guard Bangladesh or BGB on Friday night while fleeing to India.
The BGB confirmed to BBC Bangla that he was arrested from the Dana border area of Kanighat upazila in Sylhet.
After his arrest, he was kept in custody at the BGB camp and interrogated for a while. Later, he was taken from the camp to the police station around 12 pm.
Local Union Parishad member Nazim Uddin was present near the scene during the questioning of former Justice Manik.
Nazim Uddin told UNI that a person called him last night (Friday) and told him that a stranger was leaving Bangladesh for India.
Then he suggested to report the matter to the local BGB camp.
What was the BGB interrogation?
According to Nazim Uddin and local journalists, the place where Justice Manik was detained is surrounded by hilly forest. A village of Khasias on the Indian border.
Local journalists say that there is forest in an area ofhalf a kilometer on the border between Bangladesh and India. After crossing the village of Khasias, you will see the big road.
On Thursday afternoon some local people Mr. He sees Manik. He was lying on a banana leaf. But the locals Mr. Didn’t know about Manik’s identity. They understand that the person is not a local resident and is waiting to enter India illegally.
BGB members went to the spot on the news of a person escaping. He went there and saw him lying on a banana leaf.
Then BGB members caught him and asked him some questions. Some of the videos of those interrogations have been released on social media Facebook.
UNI verified the authenticity of the videos and found that they were from Friday night.
In the video, a BGB member is seen asking him, “Where is your house?”
He replied that Munshiganj. When asked to know his name, he said, “My name is Justice Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik.”
Then the BGB member was heard mockingly saying, “Judge Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik? That Manikka… who did… to a presenter on Channel I a few days ago…”
Then Mr. Manik himself said he later “apologised” to the presenter.
Then at one point he said his father’s name – late Abdul Hakim Chowdhury.
He was then asked why he was fleeing to India? To which he replied, “I am fleeing in fear…of the administration.”
In the video, he is heard saying that he was fleeing to India on a contract of Rs 15,000. He had British passport, Bangladeshi passport, money, some debit and credit cards with him when he fled. But those with the help of whom he was escaping, took his 60-70 lakh rupees and they “took him across the border” and killed him, he said.
After the arrest, the BGB members interrogated him.
Did he cross the border?
When former Justice Manicock was arrested, he refused to return to Bangladesh. He was also heard to say that he will not come to Bangladesh. Mr. Manik thought he had entered India. But he is actually lying on the border of Bangladesh.
Nazim Uddin, an eyewitness, a member of the local union council, explained this matter to UNI.
He said, Mr. to cross the border. Manik was taken through Mikirpara road of that area. “It is a hilly area, there are no roads, no vehicle movement. Sometimes it can be done only by motorbike. But he had to walk.”
There is a market next to that donna camp. “From the western side of the market, he was taken by footpath, a distance of one kilometer,” added Mr. Uddin
“He had to walk, so tired… There are pillars of India. Taking that pillar of India, they are telling him, you are moving to India. When he heard this and wanted to take a rest, they gave him a banana leaf. Basically, he was resting somewhere in the middle of Bangladesh.”
“Later, when some local people got the news, he told them – I am coming to India. I will not go to Bangladesh,” added the local Union Parishad member.
Mr. Manik was saying that the people he went with beat him up and took all his money. But he did not have any of their phone numbers. Couldn’t even say their names.
In this context Mr. According to Uddin, “Basically, those who took him were sitting in front of him and calling each other by different names. So the names don’t match.”
All the controversy about Manik
During the student protest, Mr. Dipti Chowdhury, who went to a talk show on the private television channel I, and behaved aggressively with a female presenter, faced a lot of criticism. manik That video is widely spread through Internet-based social media.
Mr. A Supreme Court lawyer has issued a notice to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to investigate Manik for non-payment of government house rent.
According to the notice, retired Supreme Court judge AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik occupied a government house in the capital’s Gulshan for more than a year after his retirement. Later in 2017, although he left the house, he still did not pay Tk 14 lakh 19 thousand 200 due to the government for rent, gas and water bills.
Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik was made Deputy Attorney General in 1996 when Awami League was in power. He was also a lawyer in the Sheikh Mujib assassination case.
He was appointed as a temporary judge of the High Court when the Awami League government was in power. But after BNP came to power in 2001, that appointment was not made permanent.
After Awami League came to power in 2009, Shassuddin Chowdhury Manik was reinstated as a judge.
Controversy started over Shassuddin Manik when he was a judge. The judgment centered on Mr. Manik’s focus of criticism is the verdict in the Colonel Taher murder case.
Mr. in that judgment. Manik described Colonel Taher’s trial as a ‘cold-blooded murder’. He described Ziaur Rahman as a ‘cold-headed murderer’.
In 2015, while serving as an Appellate Division judge, Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik publicly clashed with the then Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha. The then Chief Justice Mr. Sinha Shamsuddin Chowdhury removed Manik from a bench.
After that he also wrote to the President seeking the impeachment of the then Chief Justice SK Sinha. A few days before his retirement, he worked.
Mr.Minik not getting a seat in the business class of the plane while being a judge. Manik was involved in the Sri Lanka riots. This happened at the end of 2012.
Justice Manik was appointed to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in 2013.
Due to that incident, Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik issued a contempt of court notice against senior officials of Biman Bangladesh Airlines.
Later, four senior officials including the then Managing Director of Biman went to the bench of Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik in the High Court and sought unconditional power and got acquitted.
He came to the discussion without leaving home after work.
He was attacked in London in 2012 while still a judge. Besides, after his retirement in 2015, he was again attacked in London.
Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik has dual citizenship citizenship. He is a citizen of Bangladesh as well as Britain.
In June 2012, Shamsuddin Chowdhury, a senior member of the ruling Awami League, criticized Manik in the then National Parliament. Mr. sitting in court. Manik made an unprecedented criticism of the then Speaker of Parliament (later President) Abdul Hamid.
Then Mr. Manik was criticized in Parliament. Mr. They gave the Chief Justice and the President a three-day deadline to form the Supreme Judicial Council to remove Manik.
The then Member of Parliament Tofail Ahmed Shamsuddin Chowdhury described Manik as a ‘sadist’.
“He likes to insult people. We hate those who are sadists, who take pleasure in hurting others,” said Tofail Ahmed.
The then Member of Parliament Suranjit Sengupta told the Parliament, “Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik has lost his capacity to hold office”.
Besides Tofail Ahmed and Suranjit Sengupta, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Salim and Rashed Khan Menon criticized Shamsuddin Chowdhury’s Manik.
Even after this criticism in the Parliament, Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik did not face any difficulties. He was promoted to Appellate Division judge in 2013, six months after criticizing Parliament.
