Police get seven days to question BNP’s Aslam Chowdhury over treason charges

BNP leader Aslam Chowdhury has been sent on remand for seven days in a case of treason.

A Dhaka metropolitan magistrate's court gave the order on Tuesday after police sought ten days to grill him on an alleged plot with an Israeli right-wing politician to topple the government.

On May 15, Aslam was arrested and produced before a Dhaka court the next day and was remanded in police custody for seven days.

After the remand expired, police, on May 24, showed him arrested in two violence cases and filed a remand plea in the court over the charges.

On May 26, police initiated the treason case and filed a petition to take him in custody, which the court heard on Tuesday.

Aslam hit the limelight recently because of his meeting with Israel’s Likud Party member Mendi N Safadi during an event in New Delhi this year.

Safadi was a former advisor to Israeli deputy minister MK Ayoub Karar. He also runs the Mendi N Safadi Center for International Diplomacy and Public Relations.

Leaders of the ruling Awami League have since claimed that the meeting between the two was part of a conspiracy to overthrow Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina with help of Israeli spy agency Mossad.

But the BNP has refuted the allegation, saying Aslam’s India trip was ‘personal’.

Aslam and Safadi both have admitted to meeting each other in Delhi but claimed nothing covert was discussed.