The Bangladesh government on Monday ordered the police to investigate charges of treason against a pro-Opposition rights activist. The country’s military has accused Zafrullah Chowdhury of making “motivated and completely untrue” remarks against the Bangladeshi Army chief in a television show aired on October 9, the Dhaka Tribune reported.
“Zafrullah Chowdhury has been accused of treason...the Detective Branch [of police] has been entrusted with the task of investigating the case,” Dhaka Metropolitan Police Additional Commissioner Abdul Baten was quoted as saying by PTI.
The Bangladesh Army filed a general diary against Chowdhury on Thursday. “The general diary was converted into a treason case on Sunday following approval of the Home Ministry,” Baten said.
Chowdhury had alleged that Army Chief General Aziz Ahmed had faced a court martial after a huge cache of military weapons were lost or stolen from the area under his command in Chattagram. The military claimed Chowdhury had made “sudden and irrelevant” comments that were “targeted, motivated and plotted to spread stir among the armed forces and [were] tantamount to treason”.
On Saturday, Chowdhury apologised for his “unintentional” mistake through “choice of wrong words”. He claimed that instead of saying “court of inquiry”, he said “court martial”.
On Monday, the military called this untrue, and said, “General Aziz in his long career did not face any court of inquiry either.” It added: “It is clear from his remarks that he made evil attempts to misguide all serving Army personnel of all ranks.”
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