DHAKA, 14 June 2007 — Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and 12 others have been charged with violating laws governing trading and manufacturing companies in the country.

A court has asked all the accused, including Khaleda’s detained elder son Tareque Rahman, to appear before it on July 16. They were directors of the Daily Dinkal Limited, publisher of the Dainik Dinkal newspaper, a mouthpiece of Khaleda’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

The Dinkal Limited is an unlisted private limited company, court officials said yesterday.

Six of the charged people including Tareque, Khaleda’s heir apparent, and two of her former ministers have been in jail for months after being detained in an anti-corruption drive by the country’s army-backed interim government.

The Joint Stock Company, a state-managed watchdog and regulator of private and public limited firms, filed a case for dodging their legal obligations at a court on Tuesday.

“The directors violated some pertinent laws as they did not hold annual general meetings and submit audit reports of the company since they took charge,” said a Joint Stock Company official.

The interim government headed by Fakhruddin Ahmed, a former central bank governor, has been running the country since January after imposing a state of emergency following deadly political violence.

More than 170 senior leaders of the BNP and Bangladesh Awami League led by Khaleda’s rival Hasina Wajed have been held in the crackdown on corruption. Last week another court ordered police to investigate charges of murder against Khaleda and 27 others for involvement in a deadly grenade attack in 2004 on an opposition rally, court officials said.

The grenades exploded at a rally addressed by Hasina, killing 23 leaders and workers of the Awami League. Hasina suffered partial loss of hearing due to the blasts. About 150 people were wounded in the attack on Aug. 21, 2004, police and party officials said.

Police did not probe the 2004 grenade assault, the country’s worst attack on a political rally, during the rule of Khaleda, which ended last October.

Hasina and Khaleda have repeatedly denied various accusations of past wrongdoing, saying the charges are politically motivated by their opponents.

The interim government has pledged to hold a credible election before the end of 2008 following reform in the electoral system including a new digital voters list with individual photographs.

The most recent list, made in 2006, which was to be used in the postponed Jan. 22 election, was found to be grossly flawed. The Washington-based National Democratic Institute for International Affairs said the list contained more than 12 million fake entries.

“The work on a digital voters’ list will begin next month from western city of Rajshahi,” Chief Election Commissioner A.T.M. Shamsul Huda told reporters.