A Dhaka court on Sunday placed Qazi Faruque on a three-day remand in two corruption cases filed by the Bureau of Anti-corruption (Bac). Police arrested the Proshika chief and its Senior Vice President David William Biswas on Saturday.

The Division Bench of Justice Nozrul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Farid Ahmed, which stayed the remand order, also issued a rule upon the government to explain in four weeks why the remand order should not be declared illegal.

The HC also questioned the ground for placing an accused in graft case on police remand and directed the accused petitioner to move to the sessions judge court for bail.

The petitioner submitted before the HC bench that the remand order violated Section 167 of the Code of Criminal Procedure as the metropolitan magistrate who issued the remand order did not cite any reasons or grounds on which the remand prayer was granted.

Additional Attorney General Abdur Razak Khan defended the remand order.

Dr Kamal Hossain, Barrister Amir-Ul Islam, Barrister Rokanuddin Mahmud, Barrister Tanjib-Ul Alam, Barrister Jenifa Jabbar and Barrister Ashraful Hadi appeared for the accused petitioner.

A Bac team, meanwhile, interrogated Qazi Faruque yesterday but the team members would not disclose the place of interrogation. Bac sources said the team will further interrogate him today as it did not get the stay order.

In another development last night, Proshika's governing council at an emergency meeting formed a six-member management team to run its operations in absence of its president and senior vice president.

Seven of the nine members of the council were present at the meeting. The management team will be made up of three high officials and three officials from field operations to run one of the largest NGOs in the country with 1.14 crore beneficiaries, sources said.

The sources added that the meeting decided that Proshika must function despite the arrest of its president and senior vice president since it extends services to the most vulnerable people in Bangladesh with state, private and international funds.