DHAKA: Bangladesh police on Thursday charged a senior opposition official with sedition for allegedly plotting against the state when he met an Israeli government adviser, an official said.

The move comes as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government is stepping up a crackdown on political opponents in the Muslim-majority country, which is reeling from a wave of killings blamed on Islamists.

Aslam Chowdhury, a joint secretary of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was arrested last week after local media reported he had met an Israeli government adviser in India in March.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Masudur Rahman said Chowdhury was now charged with sedition and could face up to three years if convicted. “We have filed a sedition case against Aslam Chowdhury after we received a greenlight from the home ministry,” Rahman said.

The case was filed hours after the national police chief told reporters that police had “found evidence” that “Chowdhury conspired with an Israeli politician to overthrow [Hasina’s] Awami League-led government”. Chowdhury, a tycoon from the southern city of Chittagong, has denied plotting against the government and told reporters he met the Israeli adviser during a “personal business trip” to India.

Bangladesh has no diplomatic ties with Israel and Bangladeshis are banned from travelling to the country.

Critics say the arrest was part of a crackdown Hasina’s government has launched against the country’s main opposition parties, which include the BNP and its Islamist ally, Jamaat-i-Islami.

Bangladesh has also been hit by a series of gruesome murders of secular and liberal activists and members of religious minorities.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2016