BNP leader Quaiyum detained in Malaysia

MA Quaiyum, the central microcredit affairs secretary of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has been detained by the Malaysian police for staying illegally in the country. 

The police detained him under the immigration act and took him to the Ampang police station there, family members and human rights activists confirmed the matter on Saturday evening.

His relatives said, Quaiyum has been in Malaysia since 2015 under the second home programme, and also as a refugee listed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Quaiyum’s wife Shamim Ara Begum said a police team asked him to go to the police station when he was parking his car after returning home from Friday prayers.

“The police informed him that he was being arrested under the immigration law due to the cancellation of his passport and illegal stay in the country,” she said.

Shamim Ara also said she went to the police station to provide her husband’s passport and necessary medicines.  

Notably, Quayum, also former president of Dhaka north city unit of BNP, is accused of the 2015 murder of Italian citizen Cesare Tavella in Dhaka.