BCL men held for attempted extortion

Police yesterday arrested two leaders of Bangladesh Chhatra League of Government Titumir College on charges of trying to extort the contractor building a puja mandap in the capital's Banani, vandalising property on the campus, and threatening to throw acid on a teacher.

The college unit's joint secretary Delwar Hossain and organising secretary Rejzaul Karim Sunny were detained in two cases -- one filed by the college authority and the other by the contractor, said Salauddin Khan, officer-in-charge of Banani Police Station. 

Asif Roy Chowdhury, vice-president of Banani-Gulshan Sarbojaneen Puja Udjapan Parishad, said some youths, led by the two leaders, had been demanding Tk 5 lakh from the  contractor for the last few days. Dr Abul Hossain, a professor of accounting at Titumir Collage, said the two were accused of vandalising the principal's room, taking up to Tk 200 from each of the bachelor programme admission seekers in the name of downloading application forms and threatening to throw acid on Vice Principal Prof Enamul Haque Khan.

Police said the two were arrested in front of the college in the afternoon. Kazi Mirazul Islam Dollar, president of BCL's Titumir College unit, said the BCL central committee expelled the two in the evening.