Published : 09 Oct 2024, 12:06 AM
Updated : 21 Aug 2026, 11:57 AM
Dhaka Metropolitan Police have arrested former minister Saber Hossain Chowdhury in Dhaka.
He was picked up from Gulshan on Sunday, DMP’s spokesperson Muhammad Talebur Rahman said in a message to the media.
He faces charges in a case filed in September over the alleged killing of a Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, or JCD, leader in a ‘staged gunfight.’
Saber, a former president of the Bangladesh Cricket Board, was made environment, forest and climate change minister by deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina earlier this year.
Earlier, in June 2023, he was appointed as Hasina's special envoy on environment and climate affairs.
He also chaired the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the environment, forest and climate change in the 11th parliament.
He held important ministerial positions early in his political career.
After winning the Dhaka-6 seat in 1996, which then included Khilgaon and Sabujbagh, he was first made state minister for shipping.
He later took on a larger role as state minister for local government, rural development, and cooperatives, showing his growing influence in the government. These roles marked him as a key figure in national politics.
However, despite the Awami League’s return to power in 2009, he did not receive any ministerial portfolio for three consecutive terms.
The case against Saber and 61 others stems from the killing of Nuruzzaman Jony, president of the Khilgaon unit of BNP’s youth wing JCD in a ‘gunfight’ nearly nine years ago.
Jony's father Yakub Ali filed the case, accusing them of staging the killing.
