A Dhaka court has rejected the bail petition of Bidisha Ershad, former wife of the late president Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who was sentenced to two years in prison in a fraud case.
The order was passed on Wednesday morning, 2 September, after a hearing at the court of Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge Mohammad Shahjahan Kabir.
Bidisha was arrested by Gulshan police on the night of 25 August from the capital’s Gulshan area. Police arrested her on the basis of the sentence handed down in the fraud case and a warrant issued by the court.
The case dates back more than two decades. On 20 May this year, Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Jamshed Alam sentenced Bidisha to two years’ imprisonment in the case. Following the verdict, the arrest warrant was enforced by police.
The case was filed by AKM Mosharraf Hossain Sikder, a businessman from Pallabi in Dhaka. He lodged the complaint with Gulshan Police Station in February 2008, alleging that Bidisha had taken a substantial sum of money from him on the promise of providing a flat in the capital’s Baridhara area.
According to the allegations in the case, Mosharraf paid Bidisha Tk 7.5 million on 10 July 2001 for a flat in Baridhara. Under the agreement, the property was supposed to be handed over to him by 10 July the following year.
However, the complainant alleged that the flat was not handed over within the agreed period. The dispute subsequently centred on the repayment of the money.
According to the case documents, Bidisha later issued a cheque for Tk 7.5 million to return the money. The cheque was presented for payment but was dishonoured on 2 May 2005 because the account did not contain sufficient funds.
The complainant also alleged that he was threatened when he contacted Bidisha seeking repayment of the money.
The allegations formed the basis of the criminal proceedings that eventually led to the two-year prison sentence handed down in May. Her subsequent arrest was carried out under the warrant issued in connection with that verdict.
Wednesday’s hearing focused on Bidisha’s request for bail. After hearing the arguments, the Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Court declined to grant her relief.
Bidisha was married to Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who served as Bangladesh’s president from 1983 until 1990 and later remained an influential figure in national politics. He died on 14 July 2019.
The latest court order concerns the long-running fraud case and the allegations surrounding the Baridhara property transaction and subsequent repayment dispute. With the bail petition rejected, Bidisha remains subject to the legal consequences arising from the two-year sentence.
