Dhaka: Hours after his arrest, a Dhaka court on Saturday placed former editor of Bangla daily Jai Jai Din Shafik Rehman on a five-day police custody for interrogation in a sedition case filed with Paltan Police Station. 

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Muhammad Mazharul Islam passed the order after assistant police super of Detective Branch (DB) Hasan Arafat, also investigation officer of the case, produced him before the court seeking a seven-day police custody for interrogation. 

The court also rejected the bail plea filed by Rehman’s lawyer Sanaullah Miah.   

Police on Saturday arrested the well-known former editor and anchor of TV talk show ‘Laal Golap’(Red Rose) for sedition, officials said, the latest in a series of detentions of pro-opposition journalists that has sparked fears of a crackdown on the press.

Three plain-clothes officers entered 81-year-old Shafik Rehman's home in Dhaka in the early morning claiming to be from a private television station ‘Baishakhi TV’ and took him away, his wife Taleya Rehman said.

Police later announced Rehman, had been arrested for sedition, reported AFP.

Police later announced Shafik Rehman, who is also a British citizen and was formerly a speechwriter for the Bangladeshi prime minister's arch-rival, was shown arrested in a criminal conspiracy case filed with Paltan Police Station on August 03, 2015. After filing the case it was transferred to DB for investigation and ASP of Detective Branch Hasan Arafat was made investigation officer of the case.

Officers also said they had found evidence linking the editor to a conspiracy to murder Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy.

‘He has been arrested over sedition charges filed by police in Dhaka in August 2015,’ police spokesman Maruf Hossain Sorder told AFP.

Police found ‘connections in a conspiracy to abduct and murder’ the premier's son, according to M. R. Khaled, a deputy police commissioner.

Shafik Rehman is the third pro-opposition editor to have been arrested by the government of Sheikh Hasina, triggering repeated calls by rights groups for their release.

Two other top journalists, who edit the country's leading Bengali and English newspapers, have also been charged in criminal lawsuits including dozens of defamation and sedition cases.      

Rehman was a long-time editor of Jai Jai Din, a mass-circulation Bengali daily. He now edits a popular Bengali monthly magazine called Mouchake Dhil.  

He previously served as a speechwriter for opposition leader Khaleda Zia, a two-time former prime minister who is involved in a deeply bitter ongoing feud with the current premier.   

In recent months, Rehman became the convenor of the international affairs committee of Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and headed a pro-opposition think-tank named G-9.  

Last week, Bangladesh's high court suspended 72 defamation and other criminal lawsuits filed by government supporters against Mahfuz Anam, the editor of The Daily Star newspaper, over a challenge to their legality.

Human Rights Watch is among those which have slammed the lawsuits against Anam, saying they ‘are part of a larger, organised assault on independent media’.

It comes amid widening fears for freedom of speech in the Muslim-majority nation, which has seen a spate of Islamist killings of secular bloggers and publishers.   

Meanwhile, BNP denounced the arrest of senior journalist Shafik Rehman saying it is the latest example of suppressing divergent views by the government.

Speaking at a press briefing at the party's Nayapaltan central office, BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi also threatened to announce a harsher action programme if Shafik Rehman and Gazipur city mayor MA Mannan are not released immediately.

Demanding immediate release of Shafik Rehman, BNP secretary general Fakhrul urged the government to ensure people's right of expression and free thinking.