"Hafiz knew it very well that he would get some advantages if he surrendered after the charge sheets had been filed in both the illegal arms and arms smuggling cases," said a source.

Charge sheets had already been submitted before his surrender and there is no legal scope to place him on remand, the sources said.

Legal experts however said a lot depends on the government's determination for unearthing of important clues or extracting of information from him regarding the whole syndicate behind the incident or arms smuggling in general that has been going on for long.

"He can be shown arrested under section 54 and then taken on remand for interrogation, or the government can appeal for supplementary charge sheets in the cases," said a lawyer yesterday seeking anonymity.

Police on April 2 last year confiscated 10 truckloads of sophisticated weapons and a large quantity of ammunition from the jetty of Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited (CUFL).

Following the incident an illegal arms case under the Arms Act and an arms smuggling case under the Special Power Act was filed. Charges were framed against 44 persons in the two cases including prime suspects Hafizur Rahman alias Hafiz, Din Mohammad, Abul Kashem Madhu, Hajee Sobhan and Hajee Yakub. Hearing of the illegal arms case has already started and hearing of the arms smuggling case will begin on November 15.

Eleven of the accused including Din Mohammad, Abul Kashem Madhu, Hajee Sobhan and Hajee Yakub are in hiding and 28 are on bail while the other five are in jail.

Who is Hafiz?

Hailing from Patiya upazila in Chittagong, Hafiz always maintained good relation with the ruling parties.

He joined Jaitya Party (JP) during the 1980s and immediately got involved in criminal activities like hijacking, looting, abduction, smuggling of arms, and murder. His first criminal operation was the murder of a union parishad chairman's brother on January10, 1989.

An accused in 11 criminal cases, Hafiz was arrested once on March 13, 1989 during the autocratic regime of HM Ershad with a large cache of arms and ammunition in his possession but came out of jail on bail using his political link with the erstwhile ruling JP.

Hafiz arrived at the jetty early morning on April 2, 2004 in his maroon car from his business firm Noor Optical at the city's Laldighi Par area and supervised the unloading and reloading of the arms and ammunition from two fishing boats onto 10 trucks. He and his gang were in collusion with some police personnel, said the sources.

They said he left the scene as soon as police raided the jetty. He had been in hiding since then until his surrender.