Retired lt gen Masud Uddin Chowdhury arrested

Masud Uddin Chowdhury, a retired three-star army general who rose to prominence during the 2007–08 caretaker government, has been detained by police detectives in a late-night raid on his home in Dhaka.

“Yes, we have arrested him,” said Deputy Inspector General Shafiqul Islam, who heads the Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Detective Branch (DB).

“There are as many as five cases against him,” he told bdnews24.com early on Tuesday.

The top detective, however, could not provide details of the charges against the former general.

Police said Chowdhury was detained from a house in the Baridhara DOHS area.

He was the GOC of the 9th Division and played a key role in the 2007–08 caretaker government’s hunt for “criminals” of various kinds. He acted as chief coordinator to a powerful government committee dealing with “serious crimes”. The committee was chaired by retired major general MA Matin, the then adviser in charge of the home ministry.

But behind the scenes, he was widely believed to have controlled and directed the activities of the 2007–08 Joint Forces, led by military officers who detained and interrogated top politicians and businesspeople and charged them with corruption.

He was, according to various accounts, one of the key military officers instrumental in the declaration of a state of emergency and the installation of the military-backed caretaker government headed by Fakhruddin Ahmed.

A close associate of the then army chief lt gen (later four-star general) Moeen U Ahmed, he virtually ran the powerful committee that ordered the detention of senior politicians from both the BNP and the Awami League, as well as some of the country’s top businesspeople.

Among the detainees were former prime ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina, and current prime minister Tarique Rahman.

Chowdhury was later sent to Australia as high commissioner and, following his retirement, joined the Jatiya Party led by HM Ershad. He became a member of parliament for the Feni-3 constituency on the party ticket.

The caretaker government at the time pursued what came to be known as the “minus two formula”, banning all political activities apart from those of the newly formed Nagorik Party led by Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank.

After months of manoeuvring, Yunus — although backed by a section of civil society activists — abandoned the political project.