Sedition case against BNP’s Aslam Chowdhury to be filed on Thursday: IGP

The home ministry has cleared the way for the police to book BNP leader Aslam Chowdhury on sedition charges over a ‘plot with Israel’, says police chief AKM Shahidul Hoque.

The inspector general of police (IGP) told the media on Thursday that the case would be filed on Thursday.

“He tried to create anarchy by making the present government seem unpopular to the leaders of Israel’s Likud party. Our initial investigation has found evidence that suggests that.”

“We had sought the home ministry's permission to file a sedition case against Aslam Chowdhury. The ministry has sanctioned that,” said IGP Hoque.

The case will be filed at the Gulshan Police Station by evening, Detective Branch Deputy Commissioner Sheikh Nazmul Alam told bdnews24.com. “Everything has been finalised.”

A BNP joint secretary general, Aslam came into the limelight as a result of his meeting with Likud Party leader Mendi N Safadi at an event in India this year.

Leaders of the ruling Awami League were quick to claim the meeting was part of a conspiracy to oust Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina with help of the Israeli spy agency Mossad. 

The BNP has been denying the allegation, saying Aslam’s trip to New Delhi was ‘personal’.

He was arrested in Dhaka on May 15 under Section 54 and questioned in police custody.

In their remand plea for Aslam, police said questioning him was necessary because ‘he met a member of Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad in India’ and there were allegations against him of ‘conspiring against the government with Israel’.

But his lawyers said he had gone on a five-day trip to India for medical treatment.

The photos published in the media were from an ‘event he was invited to’, where he ‘met some Israeli people’. Aslam did not have a meeting with them, they said.

Aslam, convenor of the BNP’s north unit at Chittagong, was made a joint secretary general by party chief Khaleda Zia at the BNP’s sixth National Council in March.

Police on Tuesday showed him arrested in two cases of violence and sought ten days’ remand in each of the cases filed in January last year.

He and Safadi both admitted meeting each other at the Delhi event but claimed no secret matter was discussed.

But Aslam also said he was not aware that Safadi, a former advisor to Israeli deputy minister MK Ayoub Karar, was a leader of the ruling Likud Party.

Safadi also runs the Mendi N Safadi Center for International Diplomacy and Public Relations in Israel.