TDS Desk:

A Dhaka court on Wednesday sent Bidisha Ershad, former second wife of late president and Jatiya Party founder Hussain Muhammad Ershad, to jail after rejecting her bail petition in a fraud case filed with Gulshan Police Station.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Aminul Islam Junaid passed the order after a hearing in the afternoon, said public prosecutor Syed Golam Murtuza Ibn-e-Islam.

Bidisha’s lawyers, including Atikur Rahman, Moniruzzaman and Mahmudul Kabir, sought bail, while the prosecution opposed the plea.

After hearing both sides, the court rejected the bail petition and ordered that Bidisha be sent to jail.

Bidisha was arrested from Gulshan in the capital at around 8:30pm on Tuesday following a warrant issued by the court.

On 20 May this year, Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Jamsed Alam sentenced her to two years in jail and fined her Tk10,000, in default of which she would have to serve an additional month in prison, in a 2008 fraud case.

Businessman AKM Mosharraf Hossain filed the case against Bidisha on 7 February 2008, accusing her of fraud in connection with the sale of a flat.

According to the case documents, Mosharraf, an importer and trader of sanitary products in Mirpur-10, contacted Bidisha in 2001 to purchase a flat in Baridhara.

They later agreed on Tk80 lakh for the sale of a flat at President Park in Baridhara.

On 10 July 2001, Bidisha called Mosharraf to her office in Banani and asked him to issue a Tk75 lakh pay order in the name of her nominee and friend Abdul Razzak. Mosharraf made the payment through Standard Chartered Bank’s Kawran Bazar branch, after which they executed an agreement for sale.

Under the agreement, the flat was to be registered after obtaining approval from the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha and paying the remaining amount.

Although Bidisha had promised to hand over the flat by 10 July 2002, it was not delivered even after a considerable period. When Mosharraf pressed her to hand over the flat, she assured him that the money would be returned.

She later issued a Tk72 lakh cheque on 9 February 2005, but the cheque was dishonoured when presented to the bank due to insufficient funds, according to the case documents.

The complainant further alleged that Bidisha kept delaying the matter on various pretexts and neither returned the money nor handed over the flat. He also alleged that he was threatened with death by hired criminals when he demanded either the money or the flat.

The case further alleged that Bidisha told Mosharraf he would have to wait until money was recovered from former president Ershad.