BNP chairperson’s Adviser Khandker Mahbub Hossain, BNP Vice-Chairman Selima Rahman and two other BNP leaders were detained yesterday.
Former BNP lawmakers Fazlul Huq Milon of Gazipur and Nazim Uddin of Laxmipur were arrested from the Baridhara office of opposition Chief-Whip Zainul Abdin Farroque, along with two BNP MPs and another party leader around 3:30pm. However, the latter four were released soon afterwards.
Khandker Mahbub was arrested in front of the National Press Club by Detective Branch (DB) personnel around 2:15pm.
Later Selima Rahman was detained from her Gulshan residence around 7pm.
Former MPs Fazlul Huq Milon and Nazimuddin Ahmed from Farroque’s office.
Masudur Rahman, a deputy commissioner at the Media Centre of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) confirmed that all the BNP leaders had been taken to the headquarters of the Detective Branch on Minto Road.
According to eyewitnesses, a detective team detained Khandaker Mahbub immediately after he came out of the Press Club from a function organized by the pro-BNP Sammilito Peshajibi Parishad.
About an hour later, another DB team detained Zainul Abdin Farroque, Fazlul Huq Milon, Nazim Uddin, BNP MPsABM Ashraf Uddin and Harun Ur-Rashid and Jatiyatabadi Mohila Dal leader Shirin Sultana. However, while Milon and Nazim were not released, the other four were freed later.
Police sources said the six BNP leaders were detained while they were holding a meeting.
When asked, DC Masudur Rahman of DMP said four BNP leaders escaped by dodging the lawmen.
BNP Vice-Chairman Selima Rahman was arrested around 7pm at her Gulshan residence on Road 61 immediately after she held a press briefing announcing the next programme of the BNP-led 18-party opposition alliance.
DB personnel picked up Selima Rahman soon after the journalists left her house.
DC Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune: “Khandker Mahbub Hossain was arrested by a team of the South Division of the DB for his provocative speech on December 28 at a function, a day before 18-party alliance’sMarch for Democracy programme.”
“Following his provocative speech, subversive and destructive activities broke out in the capital and elsewhere in the country,” he added.
However, he refused to say why Selima Rahman, Fazlul Huq Milon and Nazim Uddin Ahmed were detained. “The causes of their arrest will be announced later,” he said.
Farat Hossain, the wife of Khandaker Mahbuballeged that she had gone to the DB’s Minto Road headquarters to meet her husband in the evening but was not allowed to meet him. She said her husband had been arrested under false charges.
Supreme Court Bar Association condemned the arrest in a press briefing and demanded the immediate release of Khandker Mahbub, who is the vice-chairman of the Bangladesh Bar Council.