Senior journalist and political activist Shafik Rehman has been arrested in Dhaka over an alleged plot to kill Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy.
Mr. Rehman, former editor and owner of a Bengali weekly and a daily, was picked up by Detective Branch officials from his home at Dhaka’s Eskaton.
Reporters covering the incident said Mr. Rehman, who is also an adviser to Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief Khaleda Zia, was first taken to the Detective Branch office.
Mr. Rehman, who had earlier worked for BBC, had taken British citizenship.
BNP has condemned Mr. Rehman’s detention and demanded his immediate release.
Officers said they had found evidence linking the editor to a plot to murder Mr. Joy, who lives mainly in the U.S., in a case filed in August.
“He (Rehman) visited the U.S. in 2013 and took part in the conspiracy against Joy,” said police spokesman Maruf Hossain Sorder.
Police found “connections in a conspiracy to abduct and murder” the premier’s son, according to M.R. Khaled, a deputy police commissioner.
Mr. Rehman is the third pro-opposition editor to have been arrested by the government, triggering repeated calls by rights groups for their release. Two other top journalists, who edit the country’s leading Bengali and English newspapers, have also been charged in criminal lawsuits including dozens of defamation and sedition cases. ( With agency inputs)
