Staff Correspondent

A Dhaka court Monday ordered former Bashundhara Group director Abu Sufian into jail. Magistrate Md Golam Rabbani of the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court-3 for Dhaka rejected the appeal for bail and put him behind bars.

The court, however, ordered authorities to make arrangements for his good treatment. The Anticorruption Commission (ACC) arrested the former Bashundhara director Sunday for attempting to hush up the murder of Bashundhara Telecom director Humayun Kabir Sabbir.

Sabbir was murdered at an apartment in Gulshan on July 4, 2006 and his body was recovered the next day. Later, an attempt was allegedly made to pass the incident on as a case of suicide.

As the incident came to light, it was alleged that former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar was given Tk 20 crore to cover up the murder.

The ACC filed a case with Gulshan Police Station on Oct 4 last year against Babar, Bashundhara Group chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan alias Shah Alam, his two sons Safiat Sobhan Sanbir and Sadat Sobhan, Eastwest Property Development director, an associated organisation of Bashundhara, Abu Sufian and BNP's senior joint secretary general Tarique Rahman's personal assistant Nuruddin Apu.

ACC deputy assistant director Rupak Kumar Saha, also the investigation officer in the case, included Tarique Rahman and former lawmaker and former chairman of Prime Bank Kazi Solimul Haque Kamal in the chargesheet.

Tarique and Babar are in jail while the remaining accused are on the run. Rupak said Sufian had negotiated the bribes and gone abroad for a long time