Dhaka, Aug 24: A retired judge of Bangladesh's Supreme Court was detained from the northeastern frontier with India in Sylhet while he was allegedly attempting to flee the country, the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) said late on Friday.
The report came hours after the arrest of Awami League leader ASM Firoz from his residence.
The BGB headquarters, in an SMS, informed reporters that they have detained former apex appellate division judge of the Supreme Court Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik as he was trying to cross over to India through Sylhet’s Kanaighat border.
Newspaper Prothom Alo said Manik was kept at a BGB outpost till midnight citing the camp’s in-charge.
Bangladesh descended into chaos after ousted premier Sheikh Hasina's government collapsed and she fled to India on August 5 amid violent protests over quota for government jobs, while the Army stepped in to fill the power vacuum.
Before that, anti-government protests had killed more than 500 people since mid-July. Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus took oath as the Chief Adviser of the interim government on August 8.
Since August 5, a number of leaders of the deposed regime, including senior ministers, have been arrested -- many of them on murder charges.
The Bangladesh Army has earlier said that several hundred leaders of Hasina's Awami League and others have been sheltered in cantonments as their lives were at risk.
Former law minister Anisul Huq and the ex-premier’s private sector affairs adviser Salman F Rahman were the first to be arrested from Dhaka’s main river port Sadarghat terminal area as they were allegedly trying to leave Dhaka on a boat.
A number of members of Hasina's cabinet, including former foreign minister Hassan Mahmud and former social welfare minister Dipu Moni, several lawmakers and leaders of Awami League and its allies, including pro-left Workers Party chairman Rashed Khan Menon, and a number of recently sacked military and civil officials have been arrested.
This included sacked major general Ziaul Hassan, who was serving as the head of the government’s telecommunications system, and Chittagong Port Authority chairman rear admiral Mohammad Sohail, who once was the spokesman of the elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion.
A TV journalist couple Farzana Rupa and her husband Shakil Ahmed have also been arrested.
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New York/Washington (PTI): US President Donald Trump has repeated his claim of resolving the India-Pakistan conflict and asserted that Islamabad's leadership credited him for saving millions of lives.
"We stopped a potential nuclear war between Pakistan and India. And the head of Pakistan, a highly respected General, he's a Field Marshal and also the Prime Minister of Pakistan, said President Trump saved 10 million lives, maybe more...,” Trump said Monday.
He made these remarks at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, flanked by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Navy Secretary John Phelan, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“You know, eight planes were shot down. That war was starting to rage, and he actually said the other day that President Trump saved 10 million lives, maybe more. So we solved all these wars. The only one I haven't solved yet is Russia, Ukraine,” he said.
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Since May 10, when Trump announced on social media that India and Pakistan had agreed to a “full and immediate” ceasefire after a “long night” of talks mediated by Washington, he has repeated his claim over 60 times that he “helped settle” the tensions between the two neighbours.
New Delhi has consistently denied any third-party intervention.
India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians.
India and Pakistan reached an understanding on May 10 to end the conflict after four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes.
