Dhaka: An influential former military general who played a key role in 2007 in installing an army-backed interim government replacing a caretaker one, which was presumed to be inclined to the BNP, now headed by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, has been arrested, police said Tuesday.
Police said their plainclothes officers arrested retired Lieutenant General Masud Uddin Chowdhury, a key figure instrumental in changing the government in 2007 and installing an interim government that ran the country for the subsequent two years until the 2008 elections.
“The detective branch arrested him (Chowdhury) last night from his Baridhara residence (in Dhaka). He has been arrested in relation to five cases which have been lodged against him,” the branch’s chief, Shafiqul Isam, told reporters.
He, however, did not explain the charges against Chowdhury, who later served as Bangladesh’s ambassador to Australia and subsequently became a member of parliament from the Jatiya Party.
The Jatiya Party was an electoral ally of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s now disbanded Awami League, which won with a two-thirds majority in the December 2008 elections.
The military-backed interim government following a virtual behind-the-scenes army coup known as 1/11 is believed to be intended to enforce a “minus two formula” to discard two top leaders of Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Hasina and her arch-rival ex-premier Khaleda Zia.
During the nearly two-year rule of the then-interim government, incumbent premier Rahman too was arrested, allegedly tortured in custody and accused of several criminal and graft charges.
Chowdhury was then the coordinator of the National Coordination Committee on Serious Crimes, under which anti-corruption drives were carried out.
Rahman eventually was exiled in the UK, where he spent 17 years and returned home in December last year, five days before his mother Zia’s death after prolonged ailments.
The BNP entrusted him with the charge of heading the party after Zia’s demise, and came to power in the February 12 election, grabbing two-thirds of parliamentary seats under his leadership.
During the previous interim government of Muhammad Yunus, a court last July ordered the confiscation of Chowdhury’s movable property.
The ex-general’s arrest came as the then-army chief General Moyeen U Ahmed had been exiled in the United States, and at least two influential military officials were staying abroad.