A Dhaka court has sentenced BNP vice chairmen Air Vice Marshal (retd) Altaf Hossain Chowdhury and Major (retd) Hafizuddin Ahmed as well as Major (retd) Md Hanif to 21 months in prison in a case filed at Gulshan police station over sabotage.

The court of Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Rajesh Chowdhury announced the verdict on Thursday.

They were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment under one section of the case.

In another section, they were jailed to one and a half years imprisonment and fined Tk5,000 each; in default, they will have to suffer one month more in jail.

The court also sentenced five activists of BNP to three and a half years in jail in the same case.

They are: MA Awal Khan, Md Russel, Moinul Islam, Babul Hossain alias Babul, and Alamgir Hossain alias Raju.

Meanwhile, 11 accused were acquitted as the charges against them were not proved.

According to the case documents, on June 4, 2011, BNP leaders and activists gathered “illegally” on a road near Wireless Gate, Mohakhali. At the time, they obstructed and attacked the police and vandalized and set fire to cars on the road before fleeing the area.

Gulshan police station Sub-Inspector Sheikh Sohail Rana filed a case in this connection accusing four named and around 40 unnamed persons.

SI Kamrul Hasan of the same police station pressed charges against the accused in the case on April 29, 2014.

On April 25, 2022, the court framed charges against the accused, starting the trial. 

Law enforcement arrested Altaf Hossain Chowdhury in Uttara early on October 4. Later, the Rapid Action Battalion’s Legal and Media Wing confirmed his arrest in a case filed over an attack on the chief justice’s residence on October 28.

The Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court denied him bail on November 5 and ordered him to be sent to jail, and he has been in detention since then. There are four cases against the BNP leader.