DHAKA, April 13: The army-led joint forces of Bangladesh detained former law, justice and parliamentary affairs minister Moudud Ahmed of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and seized 220 saris of the government relief fund and bottles of foreign liquor from his home on Friday.

Mr Ahmed was a minister in late president Ziaur Rahman’s cabinet from 1977 to 1979. He also served the government of H.M. Ersahd as a minister, prime minister and vice-president in the 1980s.

He is the first among the 50 on the second list of corruption suspects prepared by the Anti-Corruption Commission to have been detained.

The forces, mostly in plainclothes, ringed the residence on Thursday night, after some exchanges over search warrants, Mr Ahmed allowed them to enter the house.

The forces searched the house all night and left with Mr Ahmed at on Friday morning.

He had not been handed over to police till Friday evening.

A sub-inspector filed a case against him under the narcotics control act. Another case was to be lodged by the Anti-Corruption Commission, the police hinted.

Over a dozen ministers and lawmakers of the BNP-led alliance government have been arrested, mostly on charges of corruption, since Fakhruddin Ahmed’s interim government assumed office on Jan 12.