Dhaka: A Bangladeshi court on Thursday rejected the bail plea of international cricketer Shahadat Hossain, accused along with his wife of torturing their 11-year-old maid, and sent him to three-day police custody for questioning.
The 29-year-old cricketer’s lawyer, in the bail petition, had claimed that he was not involved in torturing his domestic help as he had to stay in camps for cricket purpose.
Police had pleaded for a seven-day remand to question him, but the court of Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Yousuf Hossain granted them three days for interrogation, local media reported.
The fast bowler, after absconding for about a month, had surrendered before a court on Monday, which remanded him in judicial custody, a day after police arrested his wife from her parents’ house here.
Shahadat’s wife Jesmin Jahan Nritto Shahadat is in judicial custody.
Hossain, who has played 38 Tests and 51 One Day Internationals for Bangladesh, went into hiding after police sought the couple’s arrest for allegedly torturing the girl.
The cricketer was suspended from all forms of the game by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) on September 13 after a case was registered against him under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act.
Hossain had filed a police complaint on September 6 claiming his housemaid had gone missing. But, hours later, the 11-year-old girl was found crying on a street in the capital.
When she was taken to a local police station, she accused the cricketer and his wife of regular torture.
Police said that one of her hands had been burnt with a hot cooking paddle, while other injury marks were also found on her body.
Hossain last played for Bangladesh in May against Pakistan. He went off the field on the first day of first Test with a leg injury.
The BCB had said that the reports of torturing a minor was “utterly embarrassing” and banned the pacer from all forms of cricket until the charges were settled.
