Police are set to present Salman F Rahman, former advisor on private investment and industry to Sheikh Hasina, and Anisul Huq, former law minister, in court to seek a remand order.
These two prominent figures will be brought to court on Wednesday. They have been held at the Detective Branch (DB) office on Minto Road in Dhaka since their arrest.
A DB official confirmed that Salman and Anisul were taken to the DB office on Tuesday night after their arrest. They will be presented in court with a request for remand. However, the official did not specify how many days of remand might be requested.
Salman and Anisul were arrested on Tuesday while trying to flee by water from Dhaka’s Sadarghat, according to Dhaka Metropolitan Police chief Mainul Hasan.
Their arrest follows a case filed at New Market Police Station. The case names them as instigators in the July 16 quota reform clashes outside Dhaka College.
In early August, student and public protests escalated into anti-government demonstrations, leading to widespread violence across the country.
On August 5, during a protest march to Dhaka, Awami League President Sheikh Hasina resigned as prime minister and fled to India.
Afterward, many government ministers and senior Awami League leaders went into hiding, with reports suggesting that some had left the country earlier.
Indian media previously reported that Salman left the country on the same flight as Hasina on August 5. However, Dhaka police now claim to have arrested him in the Sadarghat area.
Salman is the vice chairman of Beximco Group, one of Bangladesh’s largest industrial conglomerates. He became the private sector development affairs advisor to Hasina in 2009. In 2019, he was appointed as the prime minister’s advisor on private industry and investment, with the rank of a minister. He was also elected as an MP from the Dhaka-1 constituency in the last two elections.
As a member of the Awami League’s advisory council, Salman was a close confidant of Hasina and held significant influence in the government. He also served as president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) in the mid-1990s and was a key figure in the business community.
Salman’s Beximco Group has interests in various sectors, including pharmaceuticals, textiles, import-export, power and energy, banking, hotels, engineering, and media. He also held influence in the capital market.
Lawyer Anisul Huq was the lead prosecutor in state cases for the assassinations of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and four leaders of the wartime national government—acting president Syed Nazrul Islam, prime minister Tajuddin Ahmed, and cabinet ministers M Mansur Ali and AHM Qamruzzaman.
During the Awami League’s tenure, Anisul handled several significant state cases, including the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) mutiny case. His father, Sirajul Islam, was a renowned lawyer and politician and a member of the committee that drafted Bangladesh’s constitution.
Anisul first became an MP from the Brahmanbaria-4 constituency in the January 5, 2014 elections, representing the Awami League. That same year, he was appointed Minister of Law, Justice, and Parliamentary Affairs, a position he retained in Hasina’s later cabinets.
