DHAKA, July 16: Former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina was arrested at her home in the capital on Monday and sent to jail to face extortion charges, her party and court officials said.

Her husband, nuclear physicist Doctor Wazed Ali, was rushed to hospital with cardiac problems shortly after his wife was detained. Local media quoted family sources as saying he was being treated at a city hospital.

The arrest sparked protests by her supporters in several parts of the country, with police firing rubber bullets at demonstrators in Dhaka, witnesses said.

The head of Bangladesh’s army-backed interim government, Fakhruddin Ahmed, said after the arrest that no one in the country was above law.

“Anyone involved in corruption will be tracked down and prosecuted,” he said during a visit to a district outside the capital.

Police filed two cases against Hasina in June for extorting 80 million taka ($1.16 million) from two businessmen. Monday’s arrest was related to one of those cases.

“She has been arrested on ... charges of extortion and the law will take its own course,” Mainul Husein, an adviser to the interim government and head of the law and information ministries, told reporters.

“It’s a sheer conspiracy to expel me from politics. Neither myself nor my family were ever involved in any sort of corruption,” a lawyer quoted Hasina as telling the court.

Khaleda summoned: Meanwhile, Hasina’s rival and former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia was summoned in a tax evasion case and told to appear in court by August 26.

—Agencies