DHAKA, Sept 3: Former Bangladesh prime minister Khaleda Zia and her son Arafat Rahman were arrested on Monday on charges of corruption and abuse of power during her term in office between 1996 and 2001. The graft case was filed on Sunday night.

The bail pleas of Ms Khaleda, who is also chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and her son, were rejected by the chief metropolitan magistrate after which she was sent to a sub-jail.

The court granted seven-day remand of Arafat Rahman to police. Ms Khaleda’s elder son, Tarique Rahman, has been in jail since March.

Ms Khaleda had been kept in virtual confinement in her Dhaka cantonment home since April. Immediately before her arrest, Ms Khaleda had expelled the secretary general and a joint secretary-general, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan and Ashraf Hossain, for ‘conspiring’ against the BNP. She appointed Khandaker Delwar Hossain, former parliamentary chief whip and a member of the party’s standing committee, as the new secretary-general.