Dhaka, Oct 15 – Detective Branch (DB) of police has been entrusted with the task of conducting an investigation into a treason case, which was earlier lodged as a general diary (GD), against a trustee of Ganashasthaya Kendra Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury, BSS reported on Monday. The GD was filed on Thursday against Zafarullah for making false, fabricated, motivated and treasonous remarks against the army chief in a television talk-show on October 9.
“The GD was converted into a treason case on Sunday following approval of the Home Ministry and was transferred to Detective Branch (DB) of police the same day,” the BSS report quoting Additional Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Md Abdul Baten said.
“Assistant superintendent of police (ASP) Fazlur Rahman of DB was appointed today as investigation officer (IO) of the case,” he also said.
Major M Raqibul Alam of the Legal Affairs Wing of the army headquarters filed the GD against Zafrullah Chowdhury with Cantonment Police Station earlier on Thursday, Taposh Kumar Das, Assistant Commissioner (AC) of Cantonment zone told the BSS news agency.
In the GD it was mentioned, on the night of October 9, a day prior to delivering the verdict in the case of August 21, 2004, grenade attack, Zafarullah made sudden and irrelevant remarks about the army chief which were targeted, motivated and plotted to spread stir among the armed forces and tantamount to treason.
An investigation is needed to find out why and by whose instigation, a highly educated citizen like Dr Zafrullah made such motivated, false, untrue and treasonous remarks about the army chief in a talk-show at Samoy TV on October 9, according to GD.
The army headquarters sent a protest letter to the Samoy TV which was later broadcasted by the channel.
Meanwhile, the military has protested Zafrullah’s fresh remarks regarding army chief. Bangladesh army on Monday called “false, misleading and completely motivated” the fresh comments of “Ganashasthya Kendra Trustee Dr Jafarulah Chowdhury in a recent press conference that he called to clarify his earlier remarks in a TV talk show about their chief General Aziz Ahmed, BSS news agency reported.
“Dr Zafarulah Chowdhury said (in the press conference) that he wrongly chose the word court-martial instead of a court of enquiry (regarding the army chief) – this piece of information he gave is not true either,” the army said in a statement.
Referring to Chowdhury’s press conference on October 13, 2018, the statement said “General Aziz neither faced any court-martial nor a court of inquiry during in his long career in the army,” the report said.
It said Chowdhury actually did not try to correct his earlier untrue remarks in his press conference and “it is clear from his remarks that he made evil attempts to misguide all serving army personnel of all ranks”.
The statement said simultaneously he made evil efforts to “damage the reputation of the army chief on the national and international level and belittle the Bangladeshi army, a symbol of the country’s independence and sovereignty”.
It alleged that Chowdhury had “tried tactfully” to relate army to the ‘arges grenade’ used in the August 21, 2004 attack as he joined the talk show titled “Sampadokyo” in private Somoy TV on October 9 evening with an “ulterior motive” just a day ahead of the verdict in the Aug 21 grenade attack.
The second army statement on the same issue in two days came after it filed overnight a general diary against Chowdhury which subsequently was turned to be a treason case.
It said Bangladesh Army is a creditable and trustworthy institution of the people and therefore all media outlets should verify information regarding the force before publishing any information about it.
“Publishing and presenting misinformation (about army) is a serious offence because it causes a negative impact on the personnel of Bangladesh Army as well as the vested quarter can serve their ill purposes,” it said.
Earlier, on October 13, Bangladesh army in a statement said Chowdhury’s “completely untrue and motivated” remarks in the talk show affected every military personnel’s morale, the force’s solidarity and extremely belittled the army’s top position.
“In a different way, it misled every serving military personnel and affected negatively their morale. Besides such a misleading campaign harmed the solidarity and unity of a disciplined force like the army which is unexpected,” it read.
In the talk show titled “Sampadokyo” Chowdhury said the incumbent army chief was military’s Chattogram area commandant or general officer commanding (GOC) when a huge quantum of military weapons and ammunition “went missing, were stolen or sold out” from there.
He said the incident exposed General Aziz to a court-martial. “It was an untrue and irresponsible comment . . . because General Aziz in his service life never served as the GOC or commandant of Chattagram,” the army said in its previous statement, the BSS report added.
