POLICE in Bangladesh arrested former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia yesterday as part of a major campaign against corruption launched by the country’s army-backed government.

Zia, 63, and her younger son Arafat Rahman Coco were taken from their Dhaka home to court and then remanded in custody pending investigation by the government’s anti-graft body, officials said.

“Her lawyer pleaded for bail for Zia and son. But the court refused the bail and sent her to jail. It also remanded her son to seven days in police custody,” deputy commissioner Shahidul Haq Bhuiyan said.

“She has been sent to a special jail” at a parliament building complex close to another special prison where her bitter rival Sheikh Hasina Wajed, another former prime minister, is being held, he added.

Bangladesh has been ruled under a state of emergency since January.

The two women have also been blamed for 16 years of misrule during which corruption became rampant in Bangladesh. The new emergency authorities have vowed to clean up the country’s politics before holding new elections by the end of 2008.

In all, some 150 high-profile figures have been arrested as part of the anti-graft campaign.

Zia was catapulted into politics in early 1980s at the age of 38 when her husband and military strongman Ziaur Rahman was assassinated in a coup.

(SD-Agencies)