Probe ordered into police behaviour with Hasina

DHAKA: Bangladesh authorities have ordered an inquiry into the alleged 'undignified' police behaviour with former prime minister Sheikh Hasina during her arrest last week.

A police spokesman said a three-member enquiry committee headed by a senior police officer was formed on Monday and asked to submit its report in four days about the alleged misconduct.

The Awami League leader was seen visibly annoyed in television footages as male policemen crowded around her to escort her to a police vehicle during her arrest from her Sudhasadan residence at Dhaka's Dhanmondi area on July 16.

Six British parliamentarians on Monday urged the interim government to release Hasina on bail.

"We are, gravely concerned about the undignified arrest this week of Sheikh Hasina," the politicians said in a letter published in the London-based 'The Times'.

The letter signed by MPs Anne Main, Simon Hughes and Harry Cohen, MEPs Charles Tannock and Baroness Ludford, and peer Baroness Udin said the Awami League leader posed no conceivable security risk and should be freed on bail so she could prepare her defence.

"We call upon the authorities to release her on bail so that she can prepare her defence. She has already surrendered her passport and poses no conceivable security risk or risk of attempting to evade justice," the letter read.

Hasina's archrival Khaleda Zia of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) had earlier demanded her release, saying she was 'saddened at the failure of the authorities in protecting her dignity during the arrest on an extortion charge.'

Hasina denied the allegation, calling her arrest a plot to expel her from politics.