The arrestees were identified as HK Hossain Ali, president candidate of Dhaka ward-11 unit JCD; Shohagh Bhuiyan, general secretary of Shahjahanpur unit JCD; Abbas Ali, JCD central committee member; Ashraful Islam Robin, general secretary of Dhaka North city unit JCD; Zakir Hossain, joint secretary of Jagannath University unit JCD; and Mahbubul Alam, vice-president of Titumir College unit JCD.
A team of Detective Branch of police arrested them from the city’s Sutrapur area on Monday, said Chief of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit (CTTC) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Monirul Islam on Tuesday.
Of the arrestees, Hossain Ali took off his shirt and jumped on the police vehicle and Shohag vandalised the police vehicle after taking off his shirt, said Monirul, also Additional Commissioner of DMP, while speaking at a press conference at the DMP Media Centre.
Besides, Abbas and Ashraful vandalised the police vehicle and carried out the attack on police while Zakir and Mahbubul were involved in attacking police, vandalism, arson attack and road blockade, he said.
However, police could not yet identify the person who torched the police vehicles.
The arrest was made after scrutinising images captured by media persons, video footage and CCTV footage of the area, Monirul said.
During interrogation, the arrestee confessed that they attacked police by wearing helmets as per the directives of the party leaders so that they could not be identified, he claimed. “During investigation and primary interrogation, we came to know that the attack on police was a planned one.”
The motive of the attackers was to force police to go into action through provocation, the CTTC chief said. “They (BNP) want to get benefitted politically. But police didn’t go into action.”
Talking about the arrest of BNP leaders and activists after the announcement of the election schedule, he said, “Wherever there will be any criminal offence, police will go there and nobody will be spared.”
At least 50 people, including 23 policemen, were injured in a clash between BNP leaders and activists and law enforcers in front of the party’s Nayapaltan central office on the third day of its nomination form sale on November 14. Two police vehicles were vandalised and torched during the clash.