Top three of Bangladesh religious party arrested

DHAKA - Three top officials of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), the country’s largest Islamist party, were arrested Tuesday on charges of hurting Muslim religious sentiments.

JeI’s ameer (chief) Maulana Motiur Rahman Nizami, its secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and naib ameer (vice-president) Delwar Hossain Saydee were arrested hours after a Dhaka court ordered their arrest, Star Online reported.

The three were present at a meeting on March 17 when Dhaka city JeI ameer Rafiqul Islam Khan, participating in a discussion compared Nizami’s perceived persecution by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government with sufferings of Prophet Muhammad.

This had hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims, as per a complaint lodged with the police by Syed Rejaul Haque Chandpuri, secretary general of the Bangladesh Tarikat Federation, apparently a socio-religious body.

Bangladesh, an Islamic Republic, has an overwhelming Muslim majority population.

Chandpuri had lodged a complaint against five JeI leaders. One of them, A.S.M Yahia, the Dhaka city chief of the party’s student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir secured bail from the same court Tuesday.

Nizami and Mojaheed, both ministers in the government of Begum Khaleda Zia (2001-06), are also on the list of “war criminals” — those who targeted unarmed civilians in the run-up to the 1971 freedom movement.

Prime Minister Sheiklh Hasina’s government is preparing to try them, along with hundreds of others, for their “war crimes.”