DHAKA, May 19: Chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Bangladesh, Maulana Matiur Rahman Nizami, was arrested on Sunday night on corruption charges.

This was the first arrest of a senior Jamaat leader since the imposition of emergency in Bangladesh in January, 2007.

The government has so far arrested several hundred politicians, including two former prime ministers and dozens of former ministers and legislators belonging to the mainstream Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Bangladesh Awami League.

Maulana Nizami was arrested on the orders of Dhaka Metropolitan sessions judge Azizul Haque in the GATCO graft case. Nizami was the industries minister in Khaleda Zia’s cabinet between 2001 and 2006.

The Anti-Corruption Commission on May 6 pressed charges against 24 people, including former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia and her younger son Arafat Rahman, in the GATCO scam case. Khlaeda and Arafat were arrested immediately after the FIR of the case had been filed in September last year.

The investigation officer, Mohammad Zahirul Huda, a deputy director of the commission, filed the charge-sheet, seeking warrants for the arrest of 12 fugitive accused.

The case relates to the award of a contract to the Global Agro Trade Company to handle containers at the Inland Container Depot in Dhaka and at Chittagong port allegedly in exchange for money, causing a loss of more than TK145 million to the state exchequer.

A large contingent of police and intelligence personnel in plainclothes led by deputy commissioner of Ramna zone cordoned off Nizami’s apartment in Dhaka at around 9:45pm and arrested the Jamaat leader at around 11:15pm.

Law-enforcement personnel took position as leaders and activists of the party gathered near the apartment and the party office.

Meanwhile, Jamaat has announced a four-day programme of Nawfil fasting and feeding the poor across the country seeking divine intervention to protect the nation from ‘conspiracy and repression’, Jamaat’s secretary-general Ali Ahsan Mujahid said.