Detained son of B’desh ex-PM hospitalised

BANGLADESH: The son of Bangladesh’s outgoing prime minister was hospitalised early Tuesday after being remanded in custody for a month on extortion allegations, officials said.

Tareque Rahman, the high-profile son of former premier and leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Khaleda Zia, was admitted to the hospital wing of Dhaka central jail.

A court late Monday rejected his application for bail, said deputy inspector general of prisons Shamsul Haider Siddiqui.

“He complained of pains in the leg and his waist. Therefore we hospitalised him to check his condition,” he added.

Another official, the deputy national jail chief, said Rahman, widely regarded as wielding huge influence during his mother’s five-year premiership, did not qualify for any special privileges during his detention. “He is being treated like any other prisoner,” he said.

Some other prominent figures who have been arrested as part of the new interim government’s corruption crackdown have been housed together in special cells with more space and better food.

Under the country’s jail code, government officials, lawmakers, members of the judiciary and those decorated during the 1971 independence war are entitled to special treatment while in custody.

Rahman, senior joint secretary of the BNP, is one of some 45 influential figures who have been detained on suspicion of corruption. The suspects have links to both the BNP and the former main opposition party, the Awami League.

Zia’s BNP-led coalition government handed power in late October to a caretaker government tasked with holding elections.

Dhaka, Tuesday, AFP