By Sumi Khan
Dhaka, Sep 30 (IANS): Two cases have been filed against arrested controversial Islamic orator Mufti Kazi Ibrahim under the Digital Security Act and for fraud, and he has been sent to police custody for questioning.
He is also accused of being behind the assassination of progressive popular Islamic preacher Maulana Shaikh Nurul Islam Faruqi in 2014. In a case of murder against six presenters, including Ibrahim, of Islamist programmes, organised by Jamaat-e-Islami and paid by Pakistan, on different private Bangladesh television channels, it was alleged that Ibrahim of the Zakir Naik-run Peace TV had threatened to kill Faruqi in 2012.
Known for his "misleading" speeches in congregations and social media, Ibrahim gained notoriety after claiming Antarctica was a continent hidden by global superpowers, and that side-effects of the Covid vaccine are that men are developing feminine voices, while women are growing beards.
Detective Branch's Deputy Commissioner, Cyber, Special and Serious Crime unit, Shariful Islam told IANS that police had sought 10 days custody of Ibrahim, who was arrested from his Mohammadpur residence for interrogation and presented before court on Wednesday. However, Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Sufian Md Noman only granted two days, while rejecting the preacher's bail plea.
Another Dhaka court has granted the police two days to interrogate Ibrahim in custody.
Z.M. Rana filed the fraud case at Mohammadpur police station on Tuesday night while a Dhaka Metropolitan Police officer filed a DSA case on Wednesday, Mohammadpur police station officer in charge, M. Abdul Latif said.
Before being detained on Tuesday, Ibrahim in Facebook Live said some plainclothesmen were knocking at his door to take him away.
Ibrahim, besides being a Peace TV anchor, is one of the key players behind the establishment of 'Peace International Schools', which came under the police's scanner for involvement in militant activities.
In 2016, police shut down one such school in Dhaka's Lalmatia, founded in 2011 by Abdullah Zaman, who was its Managing Director, and Ibrahim, its Principal.
PIS had two campuses in Dhaka's Lalmatia and Uttara. Later, the Uttara campus was renamed "Leader's School".
Peace School, Peace School and College, and Peace Islamic School were established countrywide and which used to misguide people by their name, while preaching radical Islam and instigating students to commit militant activities.