Published : 27 Aug 2026, 10:49 PM
Updated : 08 Sep 2026, 09:36 AM
Former National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre chief Ziaul Ahsan has been placed under arrest in a crimes against humanity case over the alleged enforced disappearance of Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed in 2015.
The International Crimes Tribunal-1 also ordered that the retired Army major general be sent to jail and set Oct 27 for investigators to submit their report in the case.
A three-member panel headed by tribunal Chairman Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mozumder issued the orders on Thursday.
Ziaul, who is already in jail in connection with other crimes against humanity cases, was brought before the tribunal from prison in the morning.
During the hearing, prosecutors asked the tribunal to formally arrest him in the case and sought two months to complete the investigation.
The tribunal granted the applications after the hearing.
The prosecution had sought a warrant on Aug 10 to produce Ziaul before the tribunal as a suspect in the case.
He was brought before the tribunal under that warrant on Thursday and formally shown arrested.
Salahuddin's Disappearance
Salahuddin filed a complaint with the Office of the Chief Prosecutor of the International Crimes Tribunal on Jun 2, 2025, alleging that he had been forcibly disappeared a decade earlier.
The complaint also named ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan, former police chiefs Benazir Ahmed and AKM Shahidul Haque, former Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia and former Special Branch chief Monirul Islam, along with several unidentified people.
Salahuddin’s wife Hasina Ahmad alleged that a group of people identifying themselves as Detective Branch officers picked him up from a house in Dhaka’s Uttara on the night of Mar 10, 2015.
Salahuddin, then a BNP joint secretary general, subsequently remained missing for two months.
His family and the BNP repeatedly called on the government to find him, while his wife submitted a memorandum to the then prime minister seeking information about her husband’s whereabouts.
On May 11, 2015, police found Salahuddin in Shillong in the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya.
Indian police said at the time that they took him into custody after local residents reported seeing him wandering around the city in a disoriented state.
Salahuddin remained in India for several years before returning to Bangladesh on Aug 11, 2024, six days after the fall of the Awami League government.
