Actress Shamsunnahar Smriti, better known by her screen name Pori Moni, has confronted her own defence team while in court after the lawyers opted against petitioning for her release on bail in a narcotics case, reports bdnews24.com.
“Why are you not petitioning for bail?” the disgruntled actress said at the end of a hearing on Saturday.
Pori Moni was brought before the court of Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Ashek Imam at the end of a third spell of questioning in custody, with the case's investigating officer requesting that she be detained in jail. Her defence team sought the court's permission to confer with their client, but did not petition for her bail. She was later sent to jail by the court.
After the magistrate ended the court session, Pori Moni turned to her own lawyers Nilanjana Rifat Surovi and Kamruzzaman Chowdhury, and said: “What do we have to talk about? Ask for my bail! Don't you understand how much I suffer? What is going on with you? Why don’t you ask for bail?”
The Rapid Action Batallion conducted a raid on Pori Moni's home in Banani on Aug 04. The elite police unit later detained her allegedly with bottles of liquor, Yaba pills and LSD blots.
The actress had already been remanded twice in the case by the CID. She had been denied bail at the end of her second remand term and was ordered to jail by the court.
Pori Moni's lawyer Mojibur had again applied for bail on Aug 16 but the court rejected the petition on Aug 18.
The investigating subsequently sought a fresh 5-day remand for the actress but a bail hearing did not take place that day.
Lawyer Mojibur said a fresh bail application would be filed if a remand hearing was held on Aug 19.
Later, Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Atiqul Islam granted investigators one more day to question the actress in custody.