BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has been detained by law enforcement forces today, his wife Rahat Ara Begum said.
"In the morning DB police people came to the house. Mirza Fakhrul talked to everyone in the house. Then they took the hard disk of the house and the building. Ten minutes later, they came back and arrested him," she said on Sunday (29 October).
"Mirza Fakhrul was very ill, his treatment was going on. I can't accept a 75-year-old man being detained like this," she added.
BNP media cell member Shairul Kabir Khan has also told the media that Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has been detained from his house at Gulshan by the Detective Branch (DB) of police.
DB Additional Deputy Commissioner (Gulshan Division) Hafiz Al Asad said they have taken Mirza Fakhrul for questioning.
He is currently being held at the DB office, he added.
Footage of the building shows a group of people, wearing DB and police vests picked up Mirza Fakhrul from his home in a microbus.
Earlier, the party said police have surrounded the residences of BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and its Standing Committee member Mirza Abbas to arrest them.
"Members of law enforcement forces are at BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir's residence in Gulshan (H-18, Road-71, Gulshan-2) to detain him," said a media release signed by BNP Chairperson's media wing member Shamsuddin Didar on Sunday (29 October).
In another media release, the party claimed police have surrounded the residence of Mirza Abbas in the capital's Shahjahanpur.
"BNP's national Standing Committee member Mirza Abbas' house in Shahjahanpur has been surrounded by members of law enforcement agencies," it added.
Meanwhile, BNP is observing a nationwide dawn-to-dusk hartal, which began at 6am on Sunday (29 October), in protest of the recent police action during the party's Nayapaltan rally. The rally, held on Saturday, resulted in multiple BNP leaders and activists sustaining injuries.
Since Sunday morning, there has been a significant law enforcement presence in front of the BNP's central office located at Nayapaltan, Dhaka.
In response to the party's call for a hartal, police have cordoned off the BNP office using crime scene tape.
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir earlier suspended the "grand" rally in the capital's Nayapaltan and announced the hartal. The rally was suspended at 2:15pm as police fired rubber bullets, flash grenades and lobbed tear gas shells, forcing the BNP leaders and activists to leave the rally venue.
