DHAKA, 12 April 2007 — Bangladesh’s military-backed interim government filed murder charges against former Premier Hasina Wajed and 46 others yesterday in the ongoing campaign against graft and violence.

Hasina, who is on holiday in the United States, “has been charged with the murder of four people during the political unrest last October,” Police Deputy Commissioner Shahidul Haq Bhuiyan said.

The announcement came as the government severely curtailed the freedom of another former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. “The Intelligence Department sent the order to the guards at Khaleda’s house that only four people could meet her from now on,” said Khaleda’s acting secretary, asking not to be named. “They are: her two brothers, a personal physician and an ex-member of Parliament,” he told AFP.

The meeting ban was imposed just hours after Khaleda warned that Bangladesh was at a “crossroads” and called for “unity.”

Bhuiyan said the first hearing in Hasina’s case would be on April 22. However, he gave no details of what Hasina, who heads the Awami League and a 14-party opposition alliance, is accused of playing in the Oct. 28 killing of the men who were battered to death.

Jamaat-e-Islami chief Matiur Rahman Nizami and his nine-party leaders were among those charged with killing a number of activists during street riots on Oct. 28. Senior leaders of Hasina’s party were also charged with the same offense because open rioting by the two groups had resulted in the deaths of 10 people, police said.

“In all a total of 46 people have been charged in the murder case,” the deputy police commissioner added. Among them are Awami League General Secretary Abdul Jalil and two of the party’s ex-ministers, he said. Abdul Jalil termed both the extortion and murder charges against Hasina as baseless and farcical. “The charges will not stand up in the court of law,” he said.

Ali Ahsan Mujahid, secretary-general of the Jamaat-e-Islami, said “the murder charge brought against us was only to harass the party and its leadership. The law will acquit us.”

The murder charge comes after Hasina on Monday was accused of extortion of 30 million taka ($434,000) by a Bangladeshi chief of a Malaysian-owned company.

— With input from agencies.