Bangladesh closes opposition mouthpiece, arrests editor

The Bangladesh police on Wednesday arrested the editor of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party's (BNP) mouthpiece following a siege at its office after the daily was shutdown overnight, officials and witnesses said.

"Police stormed the newspaper office early this morning and arrested our acting editor Mahmudur Rahman," Syed Abdal Ahmed, chief reporter of Amar Desh, told PTI.

Witnesses said police came to arrest Rahman, the editor of ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia-led BNP's newspaper, but met resistance from staff and journalists after the deputy commissioner's office yesterday declared the newspaper's publication as illegal.

The arrest capped a 17-hour drama played out after the newspaper's publisher Hashmat Ali, who himself was briefly "detained" by police, sued Rahman last night.

Ali alleged that Rahman snatched away the newspaper's ownership through fraudulent means while its "real owner" Mosaddek Ali Falu was in jail on a graft charge under emergency rules during the tenure of previous military-backed interim government.

Hassan Hafizur Rahman, a senior journalist of the paper, earlier said that police shut down the press as the daily came up with its edition late night yesterday hours after the government order scrapping the declaration.

The copies of the edition were also not allowed to be circulated, while Rahman yesterday alleged that police shut the press without showing the papers of the order canceling the declaration.

A senior police official said they went to the Desh office as the Dhaka police commissioner had signed an order for the editor's arrest.

Dhaka's district magistrate and deputy commissioner Mohibul Haque earlier said he had cancelled the declaration of the newspaper as "it has no publisher" since the previous publisher Hasmat Ali, in writing, notified him two months ago that "he is no longer the publisher of the newspaper".

But, as of yesterday, Amar Desh was published with Ali's name as the publisher of the newspaper.

At a press conference at the Desh office last evening, Rahman, a former energy adviser to Zia's past BNP-led government, said he had talked with Ali who told him that "he was frightened" as the National Security Intelligence (NSI) agents had briefly detained him at his office.

"He (Ali) was forced to sit (NSI office) until he signed the papers. Later Hashmat Ali signed the papers and was released after a five-hour detention," Rahman alleged.

The NSI director Shafiqullah, however, told a local news channel that they had not detained anybody by that name, adding "He (Ali) is probably sitting at home."