B'deshi cricketer Shahadat Hossain sent to 3-day custody

Dhaka: A Bangladeshi court rejected bail plea of international cricketer Shahadat Hossain, accused along with his wife of torturing his 11-year-old maid, and sent him to three-day police custody for questioning.

The court of Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Yousuf Hossain rejected Shahadat's bail plea and allowed police to interrogate him for three days.

The 29-year-old crickter's lawyer, in the bail petition, had claimed that he is 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 granted them three days for interrogation, local media reported.

The fast bowler, after being absconding for about a month, had surrendered before a court on October 5 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 cricketer and his wife's arrest for allegedly torturing the girl employed as a maid in their house.

The cricketer was suspended from all forms of the game by 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.