Dhaka-The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Court of Dhaka on Sunday sent seven Biman Bangladesh Airlines officials to the jail on completion of their two terms of remand in the case filed in connection with the disruption of the Prime Minister’s flight. Magistrate Amirul Haider Chowdhury passed the order, rejecting their bail pleas when Inspector of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit and also the Investigation Officer of the case, M Mahbubul Alam produced them to the court with a prayer to keep them in the jail until the investigation is completed.
On December 22, seven Biman officials were put on a seven-day remand each by a court of Dhaka to interrogate them in connection with the incident. The officials are Debesh Chowdhury, Chief Engineer (Production), SA Siddique, Chief Engineer (Inspection and Quality Assurance), and Billal Hossain, Principal Engineer (MCC), along with Samiul Haque, Lutfor Rahman, Milon Chandra Biswas and Zakir Hossain, officers of the Engineering Department of the organization.
Later, the Biman suspended nine of their officials on the charges of negligence of duty that caused a VVIP flight carrying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to make an emergency landing in Turkmenistan.
The Biman management took the decision following receipt of the final report prepared by a four-member investigation team formed by the national flag carrier. The committee submitted the report to the Biman’s Chief Executive Officer on December 12.
The Biman Bangladesh filed the case accusing the nine- eight engineers and a technician, of criminal conspiracy and sabotage through negligent conduct with respect to machinery for technical glitch that caused the emergency landing of the Prime Minister’s flight on the way to Hungary on November 27. Two other accused– engineering officer SM Rokonuzzaman and junior technician Siddiqur Rahman- surrendered to the court. They are now under the police custody.
Apart from the Biman, the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh (CAAB) formed two separate committees to probe the incident which also submitted reports to the Ministry.
The special VVIP flight (BG1011) “Ranga Pravat” carrying the Prime Minister and 99 passengers including her entourage, four cockpit crew, 20 cabin crew and four aircraft engineers left Dhaka for the Hungarian capital at 9:14am on November 27.
The flight was compelled to make an emergency landing at Ashgabat International Airport in the Turkmenistan capital at 2:15pm Bangladesh time by changing its route due to technical glitch. After arrival at Ashgabat, the on-duty engineers fixed the fault and the special VVIP flight departed for Budapest after over four hours of unscheduled stopover.-Special Correspondent
