Bangladesh police Monday night arrested the top leaders of the country's largest Islamist party, an official said, as the government appeared to have launched a crackdown on the main opposition parties. Nine people were arrested after a raid on a house in Dhaka's northern neighbourhood of Uttara, including the top leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, Maqbul Ahmed, deputy leader Shafiqur Rahman and former member of parliament Golam Parwar.
"We learnt from a secret source they were holding a meeting at a secret place at a house in Uttara Sector Number Six. We have found some papers from that place," Dhaka Police deputy commissioner Shaikh Nazmul Alam told AFP, adding they were investigating the documents. He did not say what the Jamaat leaders were arrested for, but that "most of them were fugitive".