The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in Dhaka has approved a three-day remand for actress Shomi Kaiser and Gaan Bangla’s CEO Taposh in connection with an attempted murder case involving activist Ishtiak Mahmud.
On Wednesday (6 November), the case's investigating officer, Sub-Inspector Mrityunjoy Pandit of Uttara East Police Station, presented the two accused before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court, seeking a seven-day remand.
The hearing, presided over by Metropolitan Magistrate Md Saifuzzaman, concluded with a three-day remand being sanctioned for each accused.
The complaint, filed by Ishtiak Mahmud, alleges an attempt on his life by Shomi Kaiser. The case was formally registered on 29 October under case number 9. According to the remand petition, the accused, identified as an Awami League leader, was involved in an incident that occurred on 18 July. On that day, Mahmud was reportedly attacked by armed assailants, including members of the Awami League, Jubo League, and Chhatra League, at a demonstration led by student groups against discrimination near Nawab Habibullah High School in Sector 4, Azampur, within the Uttara East police jurisdiction.
Mahmud reportedly sustained serious injuries as bullets fired by the attackers struck his abdomen, back, arms, and head.
Following the fall of the Awami League government on 5 August, the arrest of party leaders and activists has accelerated, with Shomi Kaiser being detained as part of this campaign. She was previously a member of the Awami League's Sub-Committee on Liberation War Affairs and served as the President of the E-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB), representing e-commerce organisations across the country.
Kaiser had previously attracted controversy for comments made regarding the anti-discrimination student movement, and she faced allegations of derogatory remarks about the founder of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the late President Ziaur Rahman. Consequently, a defamation suit seeking damages of Tk 100 crore was filed against her by Swechchhasebak Dal leader Mohammad Rezwan Kabir on 13 October in the Magura Senior Judicial Magistrate’s Court. The court subsequently ordered the Jhenaidah Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) to investigate the matter.
