Keraniganj: Members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)-10 detained 28 young men in a crackdown on homosexuality at Keraniganj of Dhaka early on Friday.

RAB Squadron Commander and assistant superintendent of police crime prevention company-2 Mohammad Abdur Rashid Sarker said they raided a community centre of Atibazar area in Keraniganj where the men had gathered.

They found drugs and condoms on the premises, said Major Manzur of the RAB.

‘We’ve arrested 28 people for homosexuality. They are homosexuals. They held a get-together there,’ he told AFP.

He said police would press charges against the 28 men, though he did not say under what law.

 The detainees were taken to camp of RAB-10 in Keraniganj.

Bangladesh criminalises gay sex under a law dating back to the British colonial era that has never been repealed but is rarely enforced.

Gays and lesbians in Bangladesh frequently suffer discrimination and other rights abuses and many are forced to hide their sexual identity and live double lives for fear of reprisals.

Last year two prominent LGBT activists including an editor of the country's only magazine for gay people were hacked to death by Islamist extremists linked to Al-Qaeda.

Many prominent homosexual activists have since fled the country after several of them received death threats.