BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and Standing Committee Member Mirza Abbas have arrested on charges of planning and inciting an attack on policemen at Naya Paltan.
Detective Branch chief Harun-or-Rashid confirmed the matter while talking to reporters before the DB headquarters on Minto Road in Dhaka at around 2:15pm on Friday.
The two are currently in the custody of Paltan police.
A DB team picked up the two senior BNP leaders from their homes at around 3am on Friday.
The police had brought them to the DB headquarters to question them about the clash on Wednesday between BNP men and law enforcers, Harun told reporters in the morning.
Tension had been mounting for the last few days over the BNP's Dhaka rally – its 10th and last one in a series of mass gatherings in 10 major cities of the country.
The BNP's preferred venue was the road in front of the party's Naya Paltan central office, a proposition rejected by the government.
Party activists had been gathering almost every day outside the office. But on Wednesday a deadly clash erupted between BNP men and the police, which left one dead and many others injured.
Following the skirmish, the police raided the office and claimed to have found cocktails and other explosives there.
