A senior lawmaker of Bangladesh's main opposition BNP was today jailed to face charges of instigating communal riots during an Islamist group's deadly Dhaka siege earlier this month.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party Standing Committee member M K Anwar was sent to prison by a Dhaka court after his bail petition was rejected.
"Mr MK Anwar MP was sent to jail to face charges of instigating communal riots," a court official said hours after he surrendered before the metropolitan magistrate court on a case filed by a leader of ruling Awami League's volunteers' wing.
Anwar's lawyer Masud Ahmed told reporters that his client appeared before the court to get extended a previous bail order but the magistrate ordered him to be sent to prison rejecting his petition.
However it was not clear how long Anwar will stay in prison.
Awami League volunteers' wing leader Debashish Biswas filed the case against Anwar calling his statement "false, fabricated and derogatory" and an attempt to "instigative to destroy communal harmony." � ��
The newly floated Hefazat-e-Islam enforced Dhaka siege on May 5 sparking deadly violence that claimed at least 21 lives.
The bureaucrat-turned-politician, Anwar, at a news briefing after the violence on May 6 claimed that paramilitary forces accompanied by ruling Awami League activists killed "several thousand religious leaders and scholars" in an attack at May 5/6 midnight to chase them off.
He also claimed that a leader of the ruling Awami League belonging to the minority Hindu community led the arsons and attack at the Baitul Mukarram Mosque complex when the copies of Quran were burnt down.
The civil society figures and rights groups widely criticised the comments "highly provocative" to spark a communal riot to create a political anarchy prompting a Dhaka court to order his arrest as both the claims appeared baseless and Anwar to went into hiding.
