Second Bangla editor named in 'plot to kill Hasina's son'

Dhaka: Bangladesh on Monday named a second editor for allegedly plotting to kill Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's son, days after an 81-year-old pro-opposition magazine journalist was arrested for his involvement in the same case.

Mahmudur Rahman, 62, already faces 75 cases of sedition after authorities shut down his Amar Desh newspaper for allegedly inciting religious tension in 2013.

The police claimed that they have found involvement of detained Rahman in the alleged conspiracy to abduct and kill prime minister's son Sajeeb Wazed Joy in the US.

"Investigators have found Mahmudur Rahman's connection with a plot to abduct and kill prime minister Sheikh Hasina's son and her ICT adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy," said Additional commissioner and chief of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) Monirul Islam.

Rahman has been in jail since his arrest from his newspaper's office in the capital in 2013 for allegedly inciting religious tension.

Rahman has been named, a day after another magazine editor was taken into custody for his alleged involvement in the same case.

Shafik Rehman, the editor of popular Bengali monthly magazine Mouchake Dhil and also a British citizen, was sent to five-day police custody for his alleged involvement in a plot to "abduct and murder" Joy in the US.

Shafik worked as a speech-writer for former prime minister Khaleda Zia and his arrest is the latest in a series of cases that have sparked concern over freedom of speech.

Police said their case statement suggested that Shafik was one of several suspects who met in the UK, the US and Dhaka and other parts of the country before September 2012 and conspired to abduct and kill the premier's son.