Bangladesh arrests more opposition leaders

Bangladesh’s main opposition party on Friday said three more of its senior leaders had been arrested, after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ruled out talks with adversaries demanding her resignation.Hasina has been accused of ruling the nation with an iron fist and the US has sanctioned some of its most senior police figures for widespread human rights violations.The past year has seen a series of huge rallies against her administration across the country by protesters demanding a neutral caretaker government preside over elections slated for January.Hundreds of senior cadres and supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) have been arrested, with former commerce minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury among those taken into custody overnight."Police arrested my dad from my aunt’s home in Gulshan at around midnight,” Chowdhury’s son Israfil Khosru said.The party also confirmed the arrests of BNP spokesman Zahir Uddin Swapan and Aminul Huq, a former national football captain and a Dhaka unit chief of the party.The latest arrests come just days after police detained Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, one of the BNP’s highest-ranked leaders.Alamgir was charged with the murder of a police officer who was killed during clashes between security forces and opposition activists on Saturday.He and Chowdhury have helped lead the party since the 2018 jailing of former prime minister Khaleda Zia, with her son exiled in London.